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CITY AND CHURCH IN TRANSITION 



CITY AND CHURCH 
IN TRANSITION 


A Study of the Medium-Sized City 
and Its Organized Religious Life 

..iiiimiiiii.... 

by 

MURRAY H. LEIFFER 

U 

Professor of Sociology 
Garrett Theological Seminary 
Evanston , Illinois 



Willett, Clark & Company 

CHICAGO NEW YORK 

1938 





Copyright 1938 by 
WILLETT, CLARK & COMPANY 

mini.11.1.11111111.11.. 

Manufactured in The U. S. A. by The Plimpton Press 
Norwood, Mass.-LaPorte, Ind. 


11 7689 


m 21 1938 


To My Wife 









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Contents 


Foreword . xi 

PART ONE 

THE CITY: THE CHURCH’S HABITAT 

1. The Small City Grows Up . i 

The spectacular American city — Cities grow as peo¬ 
ple do — Characteristics of the small city — The 
metropolis, the giant among cities — Social traits of 
the metropolis — Mediopolis: the in-between city 

2. Mediopolis: The Pattern and Its Variants . 17 

Growth and distribution of medium-sized cities — 

Traits and trends in Mediopolis — Discovering differ¬ 
ences— Classifying medium-sized cities — Occupa¬ 
tional groupings — Types of Mediopolis 

3. The Commercial City: The Prototype of Medi¬ 

opolis . 34 

The habitat of the commercial city — Tentacles of the 
town — Occupational diversity in Mediopolis — Oc¬ 
cupational distribution in commercial cities — A city 
of the western plains — A city of the Old South — A 
city of the north — Conclusion 

4. The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls . 57 

Why the industrial city? —The residents of the in¬ 
dustrial city —Work patterns — Educational pat- 
vii 





viii Contents 

terns — A southern city — An industrial city in the 
Empire state — The future of the industrial city 

5. The Industrial Suburb: The Workshop of the 

Nation . 75 

The traits of the suburb — The development of the 
industrial suburb — Population characteristics — 

The work life — An old industrial suburb — An auto¬ 
mobile city — The future of the industrial suburb 

6 . The Residential Suburb: The Parlor of the 

Metropolis .94 

The residents of the suburb — “ To the city and re¬ 
turn ” — Social traits — A university suburb — A 
Pacific coast suburb — The future of the residential 
suburb 

7. The Resort City: The Playtown of the Nation 111 

Economic basis of the resort city — Types of resort 
cities — Social traits — The city of the boardwalk — 

The future of the resort city 


PART TWO 

THE CHURCH IN ITS COMMUNITY 

8. The Church Grows Up with Its City . . . 125 

How population traits affect the church — First 
church versus community church — Mobility creates 
a pattern — Specialization in the churches of Medi- 
opolis 

9. The Church in the Commercial City . . . 140 

Influence of regional and urban patterns on the 
churches — Organized religion in the commercial city 
— Church membership — The unchurched 



Contents ix 

10. The Church in the Commercial City: Its Objec¬ 

tives and Problems .158 

The typical church — The objectives of the church 
— For whom is the program designed? — Problems 
within the local church — Tensions and problems 
within the denomination — The relation between the 
denominations 

11. The Church in the Industrial City . . . . 181 

How industry affects the city and the church — His¬ 
tory and status of the church in industrial cities — 
Religion and the community—Religious objectives 
— The church in the industrial city has its problems 
— Between the denominations 

12. The Church in the Industrial Suburb . . . 200 

Effects on the patterns of organized religion — Spe¬ 
cialized church types — Religious patterns differ with 
the suburb — Objectives of ministers — Problems 
and programs — Some unrecognized problems — In¬ 
terdenominational relations 

13. The Church in the Residential Suburb . . 222 

Traits of residential suburbs and the churches — 
Characteristics of organized religion — Religious pat¬ 
terns in selected residential suburbs — Objectives — 
Problems and programs — Interdenominational rela¬ 
tions 

14. The Church in the Resort City .... 243 

Effects of resort life on organized religion — Objec¬ 
tives of the churches — Problems and programs — 
Interdenominational relations 

15. Toward a More Effective Local Church . . 258 

Discovering the community — An adequate field — 

A suitable location — An efficient plant and equip¬ 
ment— Capable leadership — An appropriate pro¬ 
gram — Reaching the unchurched 


X 


Contents 


APPENDIXES 

I. Demographic Data for Selected Cities and 


Total U . S. Urban Population . . . . 281 

II. Occupational Distribution .282 

III. The Population Pyramid: a Device for Study¬ 

ing the Local Church .283 

IV. Methods of Securing Data on Local Churches 289 

Index .295 





illlllllllllillllllilllllllllllll 


Foreword 


M ETROPOLIS and village have received the unstinted 
attention of sociologists. Urban specialists have been 
alert to the many-faceted life of the Great City, while 
their rural confreres have been concerned with the social organi¬ 
zation of the open country and the small town. Comparatively 
neglected is the “ in-between ” city. Like the average man at 
the circus, it has received less attention than the giant or the 
midget. Nevertheless Mediopolis, the city of a hundred thou¬ 
sand inhabitants, is one of the most significant of all American 
population groupings. The study of it not only illuminates the 
local social and economic life, but also sheds light on the process 
of city growth, and hence has significance for those interested in 
either larger or smaller aggregates. 

While a detailed case study of one municipality — like that 
made of Muncie, Indiana (a city of 46,000), by the Lynds — 
reveals significant trends, it was decided that in the present re¬ 
search a comparative analysis of a score or more cities should 
be made in order to gain a knowledge of the general patterns 
and problems of medium-sized cities as a class, and also to de¬ 
termine what, if any, distinguishable types existed. This project 
arose in part out of a request from the Home Missions Council, 
an interdenominational organization, for the study of the social 
and religious life of cities whose population approximates one 
hundred thousand. As the investigation of the one hundred forty 
cities in this population class (50,000 to 150,000) progressed their 
wider sociological significance became increasingly evident, fur- 


XI 



xii 


Foreword 


nishing the foundation for the theses of this book, which may 
be summarily stated as follows: 

1. There is a typical pattern of growth from the small city, 
with its single center and unified community life, to the complex, 
multi-communitied metropolis. The crucial change takes place 
as the city grows from fifty thousand to one hundred fifty thou¬ 
sand (the medium-sized city). 

2. The development, configuration, and function of organized 
religion parallel the urban pattern in this process of growth. 

3. There are five distinguishable types of the medium-sized 
city (Mediopolis); the urban type shapes both the functioning 
and the problems of the church. 

There is abroad among churchmen a more or less open conflict 
between the theological and the community points of view. The 
author espouses neither; the argument is not germane to the 
central thesis of this book. He does assume that the church 
cannot be dissociated from social, economic, and racial problems 
and that its organization and emphases will be influenced by 
the social setting. He recognizes that churchmen are at complete 
liberty to define for themselves the function of their own insti¬ 
tutions; however, each definition when carried into action will 
bear its own kind of fruit in terms of community response, as 
the chapters on the church in the city demonstrate. 

While it is not for a sociologist to state what should be the 
answer of churchmen to the question of their institution’s function 
and program, he may properly point out the fact that the answer 
will definitely affect the role of the church in the community. 
This study, then, is presented not as a defense but rather as an 
analysis of the church; it aims to face realistically and frankly 
the present status and problems of the church in the medium¬ 
sized city. 

The author is indebted to several hundred persons for assistance 
in the pursuit of this study. Students in his classes and research 
laboratory and ministers in various seminars have aided directly 


Foreword 


xiii 


and indirectly as they have analyzed their own churches and 
cities. A further contribution has been made by the three hun¬ 
dred and more pastors serving churches in various denominations 
and cities who have cooperated generously in describing their 
own program, objectives, and distinctive problems. Excerpts 
from these reports have been used throughout the book. Except 
where indicated, all quotations have been taken verbatim from 
the testimony of these ministers. 

Acknowledgment is due Dr. Channing A. Richardson, super¬ 
intendent of the Department of City Work for the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, for the assistance and stimulation he has 
given throughout the five years during which the investigation 
was carried on. The writer is also deeply grateful to his asso¬ 
ciate, Esther E. Bjornberg, for the uncounted weeks and months 
which she has devoted to the furtherance of the project. He 
is particularly indebted to his wife, whose constant aid and re¬ 
inforcement have been forthcoming at every step in the process. 

M. H. L. 











PART ONE 


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THE CITY: THE CHURCH’S HABITAT 
















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I 


The Small City Grows Up 

T HE AMERICAN city is essentially a series of clever 
inventions and adjustments, some borrowed from Eu¬ 
rope, many evolved by Yankee ingenuity. Skyscrapers 
and department stores, tenements and playgrounds, factories and 
zoning, social welfare and sewage disposal, regional planning and 
high-speed radial boulevards, have facilitated the astounding 
growth of urban population and at the same time have given a 
unique flavor to the modern American city. Though the latter 
has many traits in common with its European or Asiatic counter¬ 
part, it does have an original quality and presents its own 
distinctive patterns. Its growth has been more rapid, its com¬ 
munities more diverse in organization, its population more het¬ 
erogeneous and, under the spur of improved transportation and 
real-estate promotion, ever more far-flung. 

When, a short hundred years ago, the citizens of Chicago voted 
to incorporate as a town, there were only forty-three homes and 
fewer than two hundred residents. Today Chicago has a popu¬ 
lation of three and a half million; it has grown more in a hundred 
years than Paris did in a thousand. Los Angeles boasts a popula¬ 
tion increase of a million in the past twenty-five years. Such 
rapidity of growth accounts in no small measure for the amorphous 
quality of American urban life and for the nondescript character 
of its political, social, and, to some extent, religious organization. 

European cities, established when America was yet an un¬ 
settled wilderness, were compactly built. A house was con¬ 
structed to endure and when, because of dilapidation, it had to 



2 


City and Church in Transition 

be demolished, a new edifice was erected on the spot. Thus 
generation after generation lived along the same streets. Citi¬ 
zens wished to dwell as near as possible to the heart of the city 
because transportation facilities were poor, streets inadequately 
lighted, and police protection ineffective. Time has brought 
changes to European cities in these respects, but even so the 
iron hand of tradition still tends to maintain the long established 
pattern. 

In startling contrast the American city, unbound by historical 
or familial traditions, with plenty of room for expansion and 
transportation facilities improving in each decade, has been prodi¬ 
gal of space and sprawls out leaving sizable vacant tracts even 
near the heart of the city. Furthermore, each family eagerly 
anticipates the time when it can move farther from the heart of 
the city into a section where living is more pleasant and prestige 
rating is higher. The citizens have played leapfrog with one 
another, moving steadily out toward the suburbs, leaving behind 
what they regard as outworn communities, into which less privi¬ 
leged groups filter. The congestion in the central business dis¬ 
trict may be just as acute as that in a European city, but at the 
close of the day the American has to go farther before he can 
eat his supper. 


Factors in City Growth 

Cities, like men and women, do not spring into existence full 
grown; they are born at some crossroad intersection and spend 
years in infancy and adolescence as they develop. Some never 
grow up, though all are eager to do so. Some arrive early at 
a period of decline and senility. Indeed, the ghost towns of the 
western states, with their deserted houses, stores with empty 
shelves, and saloons festooned with spider webs, are mute evi¬ 
dence that cities can actually die. Whether a city grows or de¬ 
clines depends to a large extent on its hinterland, i.e., the country¬ 
side surrounding the city and depending on it for certain types 
of leadership and service. 


The Small City Grows Up 3 

Several important factors are involved in this relationship 
between the city and its hinterland: (1) The size of the area 
which looks to the city as a trade center, buys from and 
sells to it, copies its fashions and finds in it entertainment and 
cultural stimulation. (2) The size of the population in this area, 
which may include a number of smaller towns and hamlets as 
well as open country districts. (3) The transportation channels 
which facilitate contact and trade between this outlying popu¬ 
lation and the city. (That the importance of these channels is 
not always recognized by the growing town is illustrated by the 
story of the Chicago merchants who vigorously opposed the con¬ 
struction of the Galena and Chicago railroad for fear that the 
farmers would no longer come into town if they could ship 
their produce directly east. However, after the railroad entered 
the city these same merchants were not long in recognizing their 
new opportunities, and quickly transformed themselves into 
wholesalers, thereby reaping the riches that flowed from the in¬ 
creased trade and shipping.) (4) The richness of the soil and the 
amount and variety of produce grown in the region, as well as any 
articles manufactured ip the city. (5) The plane of living of the 
population, the knowledge and skill which influence their produc¬ 
tivity, and their conception of what constitutes decent standards 
and wholesome living. The higher their standard the better the 
market which they constitute, the greater the trade for the city, 
and, other things being equal, the larger its population and in¬ 
fluence. (6) The extent in city and hinterland of mechan¬ 
ization and technological development which affect the size of the 
urban center and its productivity. In economic organization and 
population the city develops with its region, rarely lagging be¬ 
hind or outstripping it. This may be called a symbiotic relation¬ 
ship (two dissimilar organisms, a city and a hinterland, living in 
close interdependent association, in this instance to the advan¬ 
tage of each). 

Hamlets, being smaller units, can survive in closer proximity 
to one another than can large cities, which require a vast hinter- 


4 


City and Church in Transition 

land. A dozen families trading at the little general store, grinding 
their grain at the mill, patronizing the blacksmith shop or, more 
recently, the “ gas ” pump in front of the store, supply the neces¬ 
sary economic base. Here at the center of things the church is 
located and the school established. 

Where natural resources warrant it the settlement will grow. 
More families move into the surrounding area, some of the older 
people build themselves houses in “ town ” and retire. A doctor 
with veterinary training opens an office in his parlor; a lawyer 
hangs out his shingle; a combined furniture salesroom and funeral 
parlor is established; a hardware and farm implement showroom 
brings more business to town. So one by one additional stores are 
opened, more homes are erected, a high school course is introduced, 
a railroad comes through. In a burst of civic self-consciousness 
a town hall is constructed. Opposite the station a small hotel is 
opened. In the meantime improved transportation facilities are 
bringing in from the outside more goods and more people and 
making possible better prices for farm produce. The hamlet 
matriculates as a village. 

Not every village can continue to develop. Some achieve a 
population of three or five hundred and there remain, while their 
neighbors, blessed by location, population movement, and the state 
highway commission, exert an ever widening influence. When the 
hard-surfaced road comes through and people have cars, the farm¬ 
ers drive by the static village to its large bustling rival ten miles 
down the road. There one can choose between the two movie 
houses and later take his girl friend to any one of the four soft- 
drink palaces. This town has more and larger stores which carry 
a greater variety of goods; its churches are more pretentious, its 
schools more modern, and the town musicians play at the band¬ 
stand every Saturday night. With such competition the village 
can barely hold its own. In fact it has already become a part 
of the hinterland of the larger town, which has recently gained 
dignity by incorporation as a city! 


The Small City Grows Up 


5 


Characteristics of the Small City 

Small cities are not all alike, but they have many traits in com¬ 
mon. The most evident of these is the business district, which 
ordinarily surrounds the courthouse square or spreads along two 
intersecting streets. Property values are highest at this junction. 
One corner is occupied by the bank, a second by the leading drug¬ 
store, and the others by such agencies as can pay the relatively 
high rent. A block or two away is the market. In the hamlet 
it would be useless to operate a farmers’ market, because each 
family grows its own green stuff and keeps its own chickens; the 
demand for goods direct from the farm is therefore too small to 
justify a market. However, the increased population of the small 
city permits greater specialization in occupation. Consequently 
the market has utility in that it not only permits the townsfolk 
to buy directly from the farmer but also brings the latter to town 
where he will patronize the merchants. 

A hamlet cannot support a wide variety of business establish¬ 
ments ; a small city can, although some will be inadequately pa¬ 
tronized. A study of the business services found in the trade cen¬ 
ters of South Dakota clearly shows how various enterprises are 
added as towns increase in size. More than three-fourths of the 
state’s trading centers with populations of less than fifty had a 
general store; not one had a department store; very few boasted 
farm produce markets, medical or health units, or clothing stores. 
All the towns of five hundred to a thousand inhabitants possessed, 
in addition to general stores, financial institutions, transportation 
and communication facilities of some kind, and farm supply 
stores; but in very few were there department stores. In the cities 
of five to ten thousand each of the enterprises on the entire sched¬ 
ule was represented, except that a small percentage still lacked 
farm produce markets.* 

To return to the plan of the small city: Located on one of the 
business streets or on the market square is the town hall, and per- 

* Paul H. Landis, South Dakota Town-Country Trade Relations, 1901-1931. 


6 


City and Church in Transition 

haps the combined police station and jail. The library and the 
newspaper office are also near by. Scattered about, but as near 
the center of things as possible, are the various churches, their 
members coming from all parts of the city and the surrounding 
countryside. Frequently these churches concentrate in what 
might be called an area of specialization, three or four of them 
being within a block of one another; or several may locate on 
the same thoroughfare, “ Church street.” The influence of the 
churches, like that of the business houses, reaches out into the 
countryside. People have a preference for the large store or 
expanding organization; they cherish the prestige which goes with 
bigness. 

Even though the city is now incorporated and serves a hinter¬ 
land which includes some five or ten villages, it is still a unified 
community* with one recognizable center. Every housewife is 
well aware that if she wishes to buy anything, from a pound of 
meat to a yard of cloth, she must go to Main street, for all the 
business houses of the town are there. A feeling of unity on the 
part of the citizens, a pride in the town, in its high school, its 
churches, its new community hall, its library and its band are ob¬ 
servable. Residents realize the importance of these common in- 

* An “ urban community ” may be defined as a delimited geographical area 
possessed of its own business center and residential districts as well as of the basic 
social institutions such as school, church, etc. In the case of the small city the 
community may be practically coterminous with the municipal boundaries. In 
the metropolis there are many communities, usually separated from one another 
and the rest of the city by physical barriers or interstitial areas; within them 
there is greater homogeneity than within the city as a whole. The residents are 
usually members of the same racial or national group, are in the same or similar 
occupational class, live in about the same type of dwelling, and frequently have 
the same religious affiliation. 

Within the urban community is another type of social unit, sometimes 
termed the neighborhood. Here contacts are more intimate. Persons know 
one another, borrow from and gossip about one another; their children play 
together. 

The term “ community church ” as employed throughout this work refers 
to a local and “ indigenous ” community religious institution; i.e., most of its 
members live within the local community as defined above. The church may 
or may not be interdenominational in scope. 


7 


The Small City Grows Up 

terests and their own interdependence. Their esprit de corps im¬ 
pels them and their businessmen’s association to further efforts 
for the advancement and beautification of their city. The im¬ 
portance of this unifying force must not be overlooked if one is to 
understand the “ one-communitied ” city and also the sharp con¬ 
trast which it presents to Mediopolis and the greater metropolis. 

The Metropolis, the Giant among Cities 

Not every crossroads produces a hamlet, not every hamlet be¬ 
comes a village, and only a few villages evolve into small cities. 
Where population is scattered, soil poor, crops uncertain (and, in¬ 
cidentally, these factors tend to go together, as in the Dakotas), 
there will be fewer towns per thousand square miles than in an 
area more favored by nature, like Ohio or Iowa; and in such locali¬ 
ties a metropolis cannot develop. Large cities are found only 
where there is an unusual combination of favorable factors: a 
rich hinterland with dense population and distinct transportation 
advantages. 

Only with difficulty can one comprehend the size of a great 
metropolis, the sheer bulk of it. New York City, with a population 
of seven million, can exist only provided trainload after trainload 
of foodstuffs is brought daily to its warehouses and stores. It uses 
almost three million quarts of milk and seven million eggs a day. 
It is estimated that the population consumes over three and a half 
million tons of food a year. A baby is born every five minutes; 
in 1936, the total of births was 98,507. Approximately twelve 
thousand physicians and surgeons are available to care for these 
babies and other New Yorkers. It requires almost a thousand 
elementary and high schools to meet the educational needs of the 
children in this great city. There are more than fifteen hundred 
churches, and over eight hundred theaters with a seating capacity 
of approximately a million. The very size of such an aggregate 
creates complexities which scarcely even enter the mind of the 
resident in the small city. 

The complexity in physical and social organization in such a 


8 


City and Church in Transition 

city stands in sharp, even startling, contrast to the simplicity of 
the small municipality. Instead of one business area and a unified 
town spirit there are many distinct communities, each with its 
own characteristics and its own business center. The metropolis 
acts as a mammoth sorting machine, shaking and sifting people 
until they settle in localities where dwell others of their own racial, 
economic, and (or) cultural background. Men and women pre¬ 
fer to live among those with a similar economic and cultural status 
and, in the case of the foreign-born, among those who share their 
mother tongue. 

An important consideration is that within limits income deter¬ 
mines rent-paying ability. A person earning twenty-five dollars 
a week cannot maintain a family in a community where the rent 
for a five-room apartment is eighty dollars a month, while one 
who can afford to live in the latter area may find it impossible 
to move into an exclusive residential suburb where large single¬ 
family dwellings and servants are the rule. Not only is he unable 
to reside in the more aristocratic area; he and his wife would feel 
uncomfortable were they to do so. 

Each of the resulting racial, economic, or cultural communities 
has therefore a much greater degree of homogeneity than has the 
city as a whole. In Chicago, for example, there is an extensive 
Negro area comprising several distinct communities, each with its 
own social status. There are similar Polish, Italian, Scandina¬ 
vian, Jewish, Chinese, and other racial communities. Of the 842,- 
057 foreign-born persons living in the city of Chicago in 1930, 
approximately 150,000 were born in Poland. These would com¬ 
pose a city larger than Bridgeport or Des Moines. Together with 
the American-born children of Polish-born parents they would 
constitute a city of over 400,000. Sizable contingents have also 
come from Germany, Russia, Italy, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and 
other European lands. It was natural that these people estab¬ 
lished communities of their own, preferring to live among those 
with a similar cultural background. So dominant are these racial 


9 


The Small City Grows Up 

groups that in New York City in 1930 only 22 per cent of the 
population was classed as native white of native-born parentage. 

In addition to the economic and racial bases for local community 
consciousness there is also tradition. In certain areas which were 
formerly separate villages or towns before annexation by the great 
city, the people still place their local district above the city in 
their thinking. It may be a generation or more before the in¬ 
habitants of such a community forget their old allegiance. 

Again, in certain districts dwell skilled and semi-skilled work¬ 
ers, in others professional people and the better paid white-collar 
workers. Some sections comprise chiefly apartment houses, others, 
single-family dwellings. Indeed, within the city of Chicago there 
are about seventy-five recognizably distinct communities. Each 
has its own business district where the stores are generally manned 
by members of the racial group trading there; each has its own 
special advocates, its own local institutions and prides. There 
are political, social and business leaders acknowledged as such 
within the district whose influence elsewhere is small. In short 
a metropolis is not, except superficially, a unified organism. In 
antithesis to the small city it contains within itself many sharply 
contrasted communities which are often in conflict with one an¬ 
other. The larger and more complex the city becomes, the fewer 
the mutual interests of its residents. It is harder to obtain a con¬ 
sensus for the solution of civic problems because the citizens have 
fewer interests to bind them to one another and, under pressure 
of other varied contacts and associations, become unmindful of 
those which do exist. 

Social Traits of the Metropolis 

Size and complexity give the metropolis an interesting pattern, 
the various elements of which have an important bearing on so¬ 
cial institutions and urban life. 

1. Specialization. The central business district, the main down¬ 
town area, becomes ever more a place of differentiated activity. 


io City and Church in Transition 

One street or section is given over to imposing banks, brokerage 
houses, and other financial institutions to which the smaller banks 
in the local communities and surrounding cities and towns look for 
leadership, advice, and those specialized services which they can¬ 
not perform for themselves. On another street are the towering 
department stores which serve the city and surrounding areas 
and set a standard aped by smaller units. Also at the center are 
the large hotels, ready not only to shelter the wayfarer but also 
to furnish recreation for patrons of their restaurants and cabarets. 
Some office buildings will be occupied almost exclusively by law 
firms, others by physicians and dentists. Indeed, within the me¬ 
tropolis specialization is carried to such an extent that certain 
dentists in the “ Medical Arts Building ” concentrate on making 
bridges and plates, while fellow practitioners restrict their service 
to filling cavities or extracting teeth. Such specialization would 
be impossible in a small city. The larger the center the more 
advanced can be the division of labor. Development of subordi¬ 
nate business districts in the city tends to increase the amount of 
specialized trade at the center. 

2. Mobility. The establishment of May first and October first 
as “ moving days ” is a phenomenon possible only in the city, 
where the home ownership rate is low and “ it is easier to move 
than to get the landlord to redecorate the apartment.” The move¬ 
ment of residents from one home to another marks the degree of 
mobility of population, characteristically high in the city although 
varying from community to community. 

Closely related is what sociologists term the “ fluidity ” of city 
population; that is, the daily movement of people from home to 
work or entertainment and back again. Few are the urbanites 
who can walk from home to their places of business. Each morn¬ 
ing, by rapid transit, streetcar, and automobile, people flood into 
the central district. When the sun sinks low in the west the eye 
travels to the clock to see how soon hat and coat may be donned 
and the return trip started. No sooner is the five to six o’clock 
rush over than a new procession of people forms, going to town 


II 


The Small City Grows Up 

for dinner and the theater; and late at night an airplane observer 
could see the stream of bright headlights on cars carrying the 
merrymakers from the “ hub ” back to their homes in the out¬ 
skirts. The higher rate of fluidity and mobility that characterizes 
the larger city results in a greater per capita demand for transpor¬ 
tation facilities. These are the arteries and veins through which 
the lifeblood of the city flows.* 

3. Professionalization. Baffled by the growing complexity of 
political organizations, by the variety of new municipal functions, 
by the impossibility of making his vote “ count,” the urbanite 
has lost much of the feeling of responsibility for good government 
which actuated him when he lived in a small city. Commonly 
such political loyalties as he does have are attached to his com¬ 
munity rather than to the city as a whole. Confused and angered 
by stories of graft and corruption, he may develop a cynical or 
indifferent attitude. If he does go to the polls he frequently 
votes on the basis not of knowledge but of hearsay or perhaps of 
his own emotional reactions to the most recent scandal. In such 
large cities politics becomes a professionalized undertaking, a 
career. The politician must devote his time to the job of “ keep¬ 
ing up fences,” cultivating constituents, and doing various favors 
which will bring votes at the next election. 

To a surprising degree the recreational life of the metropolis is 
also dumped into the hands of professionals. Baseball, football, 
and hockey matches as well as competitions and exhibitions in 
other sports are staged for the benefit of spectators who pay ad¬ 
mission. Theaters, lectures, operas and concerts furnish the 
recreation for Mr. and Mrs. John Citizen who need only buy their 
tickets and “ sit it out.” Even in the church there is a tendency 
to hire someone to do work which formerly was undertaken by 
volunteers. If the members can afford it they prefer professional 
singers and may even employ persons to teach in the church 

* In The Regional Survey of New York and Its Environs it is reported that 
on a typical business day 2,868,700 persons entered the district in Manhattan 
south of Fifty-ninth street. 


12 


City and Church in Transition 

school. Such professionalization offers certain advantages and 
is not necessarily to be deplored; however, it offers a decided con¬ 
trast to the organization of life in less specialized and less complex 
communities. 

4. Anonymity. There are areas within the large city, particu¬ 
larly in rooming house districts, where people prefer to remain 
anonymous and view with suspicion any comment or inquiry which 
might call for a personalized answer. Frequently indeed the land¬ 
lady herself will not know the names of all her roomers, who move 
from one establishment to another every few months. This hotel 
and rooming house population is large — in Chicago, for example, 
two hundred and thirty-five thousand persons. These are in the 
main people who are foot-loose, who can shift from one boarding¬ 
house to another, from one city to another. They are the epitome 
of urban mobility and anonymity. Two hundred thirty-five thou¬ 
sand of them — more people than live in the entire city of Omaha. 

To a lesser degree, men and women throughout the city erect 
barriers of reserve. People in an apartment house may never 
meet the occupants of the rooms across the hall, and if they do 
probably will not speak to them. City dwellers have escaped from 
the social control of small-town gossip and resent any attempt 
to reinstate it. Gossip is a symbol of the effective conserving 
nature of small-town life, and the social values which it has tend 
to disappear in the city, where intimate contacts are replaced by 
more formal relationships. People are busy and have their own 
pursuits, usually forming friendships on the basis of common in¬ 
terests rather than proximity of residence. Another reason for the 
anonymity of the city is the widespread fear of exploitation. 
Only one who has lived long in cities and has observed urban dwell¬ 
ers with care can understand how lonely thousands of individuals 
and families are beneath this mask of self-imposed anonymity. 

5. Disintegration and Disorganization. The factors mentioned 
above, together with the general uncertainty as to standards and 
life values and goals, produce confusion and much unhappiness. 
There are disintegration and disorganization throughout the whole 


13 


The Small City Grows Up 

of our society, but these forces focus in the metropolitan center, 
partly because of the variety of disturbing influences at work, 
partly because in the city old standards are maintained with 
greater difficulty and are broken down with greater ease, and 
partly because the city with its attractive offer of anonymity draws 
to itself those who have failed to make a happy adjustment in 
rural areas and small towns. This personal disorganization is evi¬ 
denced by the higher incidence of mental disease in cities and 
by higher divorce, desertion, and delinquency rates than are found 
in simpler societies. 

The church cannot escape these influences which are at work 
in the metropolis. For it and similar institutions the disinte¬ 
grating factors are as significant as they are for individuals. Mo¬ 
bility and anonymity create baffling problems for the minister 
and those of his laity who regard it as their mission to reach the 
unchurched. However, for city dwellers who accept the church 
just as they accept the theater the success or failure of the church 
is no more significant than the failure of the local movie. This 
indifference itself constitutes one of the major problems of organ¬ 
ized religion in the city. The minister who must make calls in a 
large apartment house, often receiving a rebuff through the speak¬ 
ing-tube, has a problem which the small-town pastor never faces. 

The steady outward push of inhabitants and the consequent 
decline of population near the heart of the city result in the 
gradual weakening and final demise of many a downtown church 
organization. Scarcely a year goes by in such a city as Chicago 
but that one or more churches in areas of declining population 
close their doors. Others somewhat farther removed from the 
heart of the city suffer from an adverse population shift which 
has swept away the former adherents. Here again is a problem 
which the church board in a city of ten thousand inhabitants 
need not face. 

These illustrations will serve to indicate that the metropolis 
not only changes the organization of personal and family living, 
but also influences the life and program of institutions. 


14 


City and Church in Transition 


Mediopolis: the In-Between City 

In between the small city and the metropolis stands the medium¬ 
sized city with a population of a hundred thousand. This center 
no longer has the simple structure of the small city. Neither has 
it arrived at the complex and specialized organization of the me¬ 
tropolis. Without implying that the analogy is applicable in 
every respect, it may be suggested that the medium-sized city is 
in its development somewhat comparable to the human adolescent. 

Adolescence is a condition and not merely an age level. It is a 
state of mind from which some people never emerge regardless of 
the number of their birthdays. Small children, simple in mind 
and thought, in experience and life organization, differ obviously 
from adults, who have come to know the ways of the world, are 
measurably sophisticated, and are adjusted to the varying calls 
and pressures of life. Between childhood and adulthood comes 
a period of adolescence; those in it have outgrown childhood but 
have not yet arrived at maturity. They are developing, changing, 
discovering new powers in themselves — and new problems. 

Cities grow in much the same way. The small city with its 
simple structure, and the metropolis with its complex, elaborate 
organization are alike in this, that their status — economic, social, 
religious — is known for what it is. However, the middle-sized 
city of from fifty to one hundred fifty thousand inhabitants is un¬ 
dergoing a twofold change — that characteristic of our American 
culture in general and that peculiar to urban adolescence. It has 
ceased to be a single-centered community with all parts sharing 
in the life of the rest, but it has not as yet adjusted itself to, or 
rather grown into, complex metropolitan life. Change takes place 
in the metropolis also, but it is change from complexity to com¬ 
plexity, not from simplicity to complexity. The metropolis has 
long since lost its simple social structure and has reconciled itself 
to an unending series of population shifts and of changes in land 
values, in business, and in political organization. 

It is only after a city reaches a population of fifty or a hundred 


The Small City Grows Up 15 

thousand that sizable satellite business areas begin to develop 
within a mile or so of the downtown center. Prior to that time, 
although there were many neighborhood stores and clusters of 
business houses at the intersections of important streets, sub¬ 
business districts were not in evidence. With the development of 
these new business centers comes a realization that the city is 
not one but several communities, and that what may be good for 
a particular district may be harmful to others or to the city as a 
whole. Consequently when the North Side demands a new bridge 
across the river the East Side objects lest trade be diverted from 
its business section. Herein the city resembles the adolescent, 
who begins to find within himself contending desires. 

Like the adolescent the city in this stage of development is not 
well understood. Leading citizens, like the parents of teen age 
youth, are both amazed and dismayed at the new and antagonistic 
forces which they see unleashed. The city like the child does not 
respond to suggestions or commands as it formerly did. It seems 
to have developed a new determination as well as a new way¬ 
wardness and a tendency to vacillate. It is not as well in hand 
as formerly. Little scientific study has been made of the city’s 
adolescent personality, its physiology, and its psychological and 
social adjustments. When it is regarded from this point of view 
a typical pattern of adolescent development is recognizable. Cer¬ 
tain of the changes which take place will be seen not only as in¬ 
evitable but also as desirable, while others which may be deplored 
can be subjected to control. 

The fate of the downtown church in Mediopolis is illustrative of 
the whole transitional period of the city’s development. A church 
does not move out of an area on as small a provocation as does a 
family or a grocery store. Neither does it move for just the same 
reasons. Therefore, even after most of the population has de¬ 
serted the center of the city and few of their members live within 
walking distance, the “ first ” churches continue to be rated as the 
most important religious organizations in the municipality and 
their members continue to come by car and bus. The long history 


16 City and Church in Transition 

of the institution, its name, its traditions and the size of its build¬ 
ing, all give it prestige. Professional people find it more advan¬ 
tageous to belong to this church than to a small one struggling to 
gain a foothold in their own community. Since the central church 
is able to draw its members from a wide area it can raise a larger 
budget, support a more active and stimulating program, pay the 
salary of an outstanding preacher, and by these means maintain 
prestige and prolong its life. 

However, the time arrives when the churches in the residential 
areas become more firmly rooted, erect attractive buildings, and 
put on a stronger program; then the downtown societies begin to 
find it increasingly difficult to gain new members and, indeed, to 
hold their old ones. Long before the city reaches a population 
of half a million most religious organizations will have deserted 
the center of town, a situation deemed impossible a few decades 
earlier. Since the church is essentially a community institution 
and therefore needs to be located where people live, a reversal of 
this trend is exceedingly unlikely. A few downtown city-wide 
churches can be maintained, but they are usually dependent on 
the help of endowments or liberal missionary giving. 

This period of change is a crucial one, not only for the church 
but, since these factors affect the whole of the economic, social 
and political life, for the rest of the city as well. Mediopolis is 
in transition, is undergoing metamorphosis, is leaving behind one 
set of traits and acquiring others. 


lllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllH 


2 


Mediopolis: 

The Pattern and Its Variants 


C ONSIDERING their number the great cities of America 
exercise an undue influence on the life of the nation. 
Considering their population they do not. There are in 
the United States only thirteen municipalities with a population 
of over half a million, and thirty-eight others with populations 
ranging between 150,000 and 500,000. The thirteen largest cities 
house one out of every six in the entire population, while the 
fifty-one largest include within their boundaries one out of every 
four. In comparison, the total of one hundred forty cities in the 
range of Mediopolis (50,000 to 150,000) comprises slightly under 
10 per cent of the population, or one out of every eleven. 

Growth and Distribution of Medium-Sized Cities 

Mediopolis has shown a remarkable vitality. For the hundred 
and forty cities which it symbolizes the 1930 census reveals a 
significant growth over the preceding three decades. Between 
1900 and 1920, while the nation’s population was increasing by 
39 per cent, the total urban population increased at twice this 
rate (79 per cent); but medium-sized cities showed a growth of 
87 per cent. In the next decade, 1920 to 1930, while the rate of 
increase for the nation was 16 per cent, that of Mediopolis was 
26 per cent, practically the same rate as for the total urban popu¬ 
lation. Such statistics give reliable evidence of the waxing 
importance of the “ mediopolitan ” cities in the national life. Ob¬ 
viously their significance today is relatively greater than a genera- 


17 



18 City and Church in Transition 

tion ago. They are noticeably robust and full of vigor, and the 
normal expectation for them seems to be one of continued popu¬ 
lation growth and economic development. 

The geographic distribution of these medium-sized but im¬ 
portant cities is worthy of attention.* Eighty-six out of the total 
one hundred forty are located east of the Mississippi river and 
north of the Mason-Dixon line. These are in the great indus¬ 
trial zone of America which is included roughly within a triangle 
drawn from Chicago to Boston to Philadelphia. In the Great 
Plains states west of the Mississippi and in the Rocky mountain 
area, cities with a population of fifty thousand or more are few 
indeed. This is to be expected, since the hinterland in this region 
is not sufficiently developed to support large urban aggregations. 
Farther west, in California, there is a concentration of mediopoli- 
tan cities. Some are also scattered through the southeastern states 
and in a belt running north and south from Sioux City and Des 
Moines to Austin and Galveston. 

Oddly enough, there are relatively few cities of even medium 
size between the Blue Ridge mountains on the east and the west¬ 
ern edges of Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. A variety of fac¬ 
tors would seem to account for this state of affairs, the chief prob¬ 
ably being that the old-time plantation economy has not been 
outgrown. Because of a low standard of living on the part of 
the masses these states offer proportionately poorer markets per 
capita for the sale of materials and, conversely, afford less stimulus 
for the development of population centers, the simple wants of the 
majority of the people being cared for in the local village store. 

The cities in the plains states and in the south, dominating their 
own hinterlands as they do, naturally display a social and economic 
organization different from that of other urban centers of the same 
size which exist under the shadow — or perhaps it would be better 
to say, shine in the reflected light — of a great metropolis.f 

* Cf. Map II. 

t Note the concentration of population in the “industrial triangle” as 
shown on Map I. 



MAP I 



MAP I 




























20 City and Church in Transition 

Salt Lake City is an excellent illustration of a municipality which 
holds undisputed sway over its entire hinterland. Throughout 
Utah and portions of the adjacent states the citizens look to the 
big city at the foot of the Wasatch as their mecca. Nor is this 
attitude due simply to the importance of Salt Lake City among 
the Latter-day Saints; it is also the trading center for the area. 
The products of the surrounding regions flow to it and supplies 
are sent out from it. It is the dominant financial and news center 
for the territory. It sets the educational patterns. All highways 
radiate from it and the tourist determines to reach it before night¬ 
fall. 

Such a city may properly be considered complete, performing 
all of the essential urban functions. Every needed institution is 
found there. It has a recognizable self-sufficiency, with a full 
complement of social, economic and political “ parts ” which are 
integrated to a fairly satisfactory degree. It is a structure resting 
on its own foundation and enjoying an independence not found 
in other urban types. 

In sharp contrast are the suburban municipalities which, even 
though they have as large a population, can be properly under¬ 
stood only when they are regarded as partial cities, politically 
independent perhaps, but actually dependent on the large neigh¬ 
boring metropolis for economic life, for social and recreational 
activities, and for cultural patterns. Such suburbs may be termed 
incomplete because many essential functions of urban life are 
performed for them by the great neighbor city of whose hinter¬ 
land they form but a small part. 

This difference in structure and in function constitutes an im¬ 
portant preliminary consideration, for until we can understand 
the organization and purpose of cities, both internally and with 
reference to their hinterland, we can discover neither the basis 
out of which their social and economic problems arise nor the 
distinctive difficulties and perplexities confronting organized re¬ 
ligion in them. However, before developing a classification for 


21 


Mediopolis: The Pattern and Its Variants 

these cities, it may be well to investigate the traits and trends 
which characterize Mediopolis. 

Traits and Trends in Mediopolis 

1. The most obvious trend in these hundred forty cities is popu¬ 
lation increase. Sheer numerical growth is itself a factor basic 
to all aspects of life in the city, influencing land values, rents, 
living standards, and type and size of dwelling, as well as the 
success of various urban institutions. This growth has been con¬ 
siderably more rapid than for the nation as a whole, an indication 
that an ever increasing proportion of the population chooses, be¬ 
cause of the economic and cultural opportunities offered, to settle 
in Mediopolis. 

2. With expanding population has come increasing complexity 
in the social and political organization of Mediopolis. It is losing 
its simple, unified pattern and is taking on a more elaborate and 
differentiated structure. It is moving, as Spencer would say, from 
homogeneity to heterogeneity. This change is manifest in its 
physical appearance. Street traffic is presenting vexing problems, 
the business center is expanding, and new sub-business districts are 
starting to compete for the downtown trade. Apartment houses, 
instead of being interesting exceptions, are becoming a recognized 
type of residential structure. To protect the more exclusive areas 
against the encroachment of apartment buildings and business 
districts, zoning ordinances are enacted. These are some of the 
external evidences of the growing complexity which reaches into 
the school system, the work of the church, the organization of 
politics, and the daily habits of the citizens. Old-timers are be¬ 
coming aware of the fact that they no longer recognize many of 
the passers-by on the streets. 

3. Separate communities make their appearance. Down by 
the river and along the railroad tracks which stretch through the 
lower part of the city, mills and factories are established, while 
around them lie the less desirable residential areas occupied by 


22 


City and Church in Transition 

the factory workers. Years ago there were some imposing homes 
in this section of town, but the expansion of industry and the in¬ 
flux of immigrant groups have caused the older residents to move 
toward the “ heights.” 

Even within this lowland area of cheap rents and antiquated 
dwellings — many of which have been subdivided so that five 
families now live in houses designed for one — there is further 
differentiation. On one side of the tracks is a sizable community 
of Poles and Lithuanians, while on the other is the “ black belt.” 
It was here that the Negroes settled when they moved north dur¬ 
ing and following the World War. Formerly there were so few 
of them that the townspeople were hardly aware of their presence, 
or looked on them with a kindly curiosity. Now, however, they 
have become a “ problem ” in the minds of some of the city 
fathers. The particular races represented may differ from city 
to city, but always as Mediopolis comes of age one can find such 
working class communities, more or less self-conscious and set 
over against other sections of the city. 

The higher land is always more desirable for residence pur¬ 
poses. The air is purer, there is less smoke nuisance, drainage is 
better, the view is superior, and living conditions are pleasanter 
both in summer and winter. Here is located the exclusive section 
of town, and when a person has a home in this vicinity he “ rates.” 

For many people the cost of a home on the heights is prohibitive; 
however, they do not wish to live near what is beginning to look 
like a slum area, and therefore develop on the other side of town 
a comfortable middle class district. The college may be located 
in still a different section of town, and about it is another thriving 
and self-conscious community. Here are faculty homes, student 
dormitories, rooming houses, shops that cater to student trade, 
and residences of some of the old-timers who are now surrounded 
— marooned — by the incoming population. 

These communities are not sharply marked off from one an¬ 
other except where there is an effective physical barrier, such as 
the railroad yards or a precipitous hillside. Ordinarily they are 


23 


Mediopolis: The Pattern and Its Variants 

separated by interstitial areas which serve as buffers between 
them. Such interstitial areas usually follow the main lines of 
transportation radiating from the heart of the city. Along these 
streets are located many of the stores patronized by people from 
each of the adjoining communities. Above these stores, in houses 
between them, and on adjacent side streets live marginal people, 
who are less class conscious, who have escaped from class or race 
bonds, or are not quite financially able to move into the ad¬ 
joining better class district. It is the emergence of these ex¬ 
ceedingly interesting and divergent communities, with their in¬ 
terstitial areas and specialized business and industrial zones, which 
marks off Mediopolis from smaller cities and gives it its flavor, 
its personality. Yet while no two mediopolitan cities are exactly 
alike they all are going through the painful readjustment which 
comes when a simple and unified organization is being replaced 
by another, complex and intricate. 

4. It is not surprising that another characteristic of Mediopolis 
is diminishing civic consciousness. This is a natural result of 
the displacement of city loyalties by community loyalties and 
the growing complexity of the political and social structure. 
Politics becomes increasingly professionalized as the city de¬ 
velops. The editor of the newspaper or the owner of one of the 
stores on Main street no longer finds it possible to give the neces¬ 
sary time to serve as mayor. The volunteer fire department has 
long since been displaced by professional fire fighters, paid for 
full-time service. It is now necessary to hire directors for the 
department of public health, the parks and playgrounds com¬ 
mission, the street and building commissions. As the city grows 
larger the residents seem to lose some of their feeling of personal 
responsibility for the purity of politics. There are fewer watch¬ 
dogs of the public treasury. In spite of graft and rumors of graft, 
reformers find it difficult to awaken civic consciousness or even 
to rouse it to such a point that citizens will grapple effectively 
with the growing problems of political administration and policy. 
Typical is the statement of a minister serving in an upper class 


24 


City and Church in Transition 

residential community in Des Moines: “ Our people take little 
interest in civic problems. The vote in this section is less per 
capita than in less favored areas.” 

5. The establishment of new and specialized services is symp¬ 
tomatic of the changes which are taking place in our total political 
and economic life. In Mediopolis and larger cities this is particu¬ 
larly noteworthy, for such new services are not only less needed 
but also less practicable in smaller population centers. For in¬ 
stance, while the small city may have its public square, with 
the courthouse at the center, there is little need for an or¬ 
ganized park system. The growing congestion felt in Medi¬ 
opolis, however, causes socially conscious citizens to recog¬ 
nize the necessity for providing playgrounds and parks, with 
the result that a park board is established, a bond issue 
floated, and new persons such as a park superintendent, a 
recreational director, and landscape gardeners are added to the 
city payroll. There is a similar development in the city’s pub¬ 
lic health service. Instead of the informal conferences held 
by the several physicians on special emergency needs which de¬ 
velop in a small town from time to time, one finds a regularly 
organized bureau of public health, with a doctor employed full 
time as director. He is assisted by various office technicians and 
chemists who inspect the water and milk supplies and give at¬ 
tention to the disposal of wastes, and by a corps of nurses. Not 
infrequently as the city grows larger he will be responsible for 
clinics and perhaps for a municipal hospital. Specialization 
likewise occurs in the legal field. The justice of the peace is 
replaced by a new municipal court system, “ more appropriate 
for a city of our size.” 

These services and many others, such as a family welfare bureau 
and an employment department, offer advantages to the average 
citizen, but only at a price: the advantages are matched by rising 
taxes. But while taxes are higher in Mediopolis than in smaller 
cities the per capita cost of government is even greater in the 
large metropolis. In 1930, cities in the United States with a popu- 


Mediopolis: The Pattern and Its Variants 25 

lation ranging from 30,000 to 50,000 had an average per capita 
tax of $36.97, while the corresponding figures for cities of 100,000 
to 300,000 population, and for those with a population of over 
500,000, were respectively $39.93 and $61.13. The citizen of 
Mediopolis will discover that with further growth governmental 
costs will rise. Consider the following figures, obtained, like 
those above, from the Federal Bureau of the Census. For cities 
of 100,000 to 300,000 the per capita cost of charities, hospitals 
and correctional institutions in 1935 was $3.61; for those of 
300,000 to 500,000, $7.07; for those of over 500,000, $12.04. 
Corresponding figures for police service rise from $2.71 to $3.65 
to $5.84. Further, the per capita gross debt rises from $140 to 
$218 to $261. Evidently the cost of the growing complexity, 
professionalization, and specialized services mounts as cities grow. 

Discovering Differences 

Further feeling of the pulse of these cities reveals that some 
of the hundred forty have much more vitality than others. In¬ 
deed, thirteen showed a net loss of population for the decade 
between 1920 and 1930; two of them, Lowell and Hoboken, suf¬ 
fered a decline of over 10 per cent. In striking contrast are such 
prodigy cities as Chattanooga, Durham, and San Diego, which 
doubled their population; Miami and Cleveland Heights, which 
tripled in size; Glendale with a fourfold growth, and Dearborn 
which expanded at the remarkable rate of 1939 per cent. Thirty- 
four out of the hundred forty cities failed to grow by as much as 
10 per cent, or showed a net loss; while, oddly enough, exactly 
the same number boasted an increase of 50 per cent or more dur¬ 
ing the decade. Obviously these cities are not all cut from the 
same piece of cloth; their social and economic organizations 
differ widely and their future growth will not follow one pre¬ 
scribed pattern. 

The average medium-sized city in the northeastern states is 
not as lusty as that in other sections of the country. Thirty 
of the thirty-four which failed to gain as much as 10 per cent 


26 


City and Church in Transition 

were located in the eastern states, which on the other hand boasted 
only twelve of the thirty-four that grew most rapidly. Hence 
it would appear that the geographic factor itself exercises some 
influence. The poorest showing for the decade was made by the 
New England textile and other light manufacturing cities (Brock¬ 
ton, Fall River, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, Manchester, New 
Bedford). Conversely, those cities in the south to which manu¬ 
facturers have been fleeing (Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Greens¬ 
boro) have shown a remarkable growth of 75 per cent or more. 
These figures would indicate that population shifts cannot be 
understood without consideration of the changes in the economic 
functioning of the cities. 

When attention is turned to the cities showing most rapid 
growth, factors other than shifts in the textile trade will be recog¬ 
nized as important. In certain areas expanding industries have 
called thousands to factories and foundries and cities have sprung 
up like mushrooms. This observation applies particularly to 
“ one-industry ” towns such as Gary, Hammond, and East Chi¬ 
cago, which specialize in steel; Pontiac and Dearborn, in auto¬ 
mobiles; Winston-Salem and Tampa, in tobacco; and Tulsa, 
Port Arthur, and Long Beach, in oil. If the whole life of the 
community is dependent on one industry a rapid expansion in 
that industry will result in a phenomenal development of the 
city, whereas in a center with a wide variety of industrial and 
commercial functions the intensive development of some of these 
may be counterbalanced by retrogression in others. However, 
the other side of the shield should also be looked at. A one- 
industry city may be bankrupted in short order by the disappear¬ 
ance of demand for its products, by a change in availability of 
raw materials, or by a deliberate decision on the part of factory 
owners to move into a new area (cf. the New England textile 
cities). In a serious depression, with whole populations thrown 
out of work, such one-industry towns as Gary and Dearborn are 
especially hard hit. Although a diversified city, like Des Moines, 


27 


Mediopolis: The Pattern and Its Variants 

will certainly suffer in such a period, the relative balance of its 
industries and trade prevents so complete a collapse as befalls 
one-industry towns. 

Conspicuous growth has occurred in another mediopolitan 
type, the residential suburb. These suburbs situated on the pe¬ 
riphery of large metropolitan centers have developed through 
the performance of one specialized function. Located in the more 
desirable areas, they have attracted to themselves people who 
are able to pay higher rents and wish to live in a somewhat ex¬ 
clusive area. They have grown far more rapidly than the me¬ 
tropolis itself in which the suburbanites earn a livelihood. Illus¬ 
trations are Lakewood and Cleveland Heights, which are 
dependent on Cleveland; Oak Park and Evanston, on Chicago; 
Glendale and Pasadena, on Los Angeles; Irvington, Union City, 
Mount Vernon, and East Orange, on New York City. 

The resort city displays still another pattern. San Diego, Long 
Beach, and Miami have expanded rapidly. The growing interest 
in travel and improvements in means of transportation — in the 
automobile and trailer no less than in the railroad train — have 
brought people by the tens of thousands in search of sunshine 
and a good time. This interest in travel is also evidence of a 
relatively higher general standard of living which permits 
longer vacations, at least for some groups, and an opportunity 
to retire on a moderate income at an earlier age. The growth of 
resort communities demonstrates the great mobility of the Ameri¬ 
can public. 

Classifying Medium-Sized Cities 

So far no attempt has been made at a systematic classification 
of medium-sized cities. Enough has been said to indicate that 
they are not all alike. The most important indices of a city’s 
character are not its streets or houses, its form of government, 
or the size of its school buildings, but the way in which its people 
earn their living. What functions do they perform for the sur- 


28 


City and Church in Transition 

rounding hinterland or the adjoining metropolis? What are 
their economic, their social, their religious ties? Such informa¬ 
tion is not obvious on the surface, yet it must be obtained if 
one is to understand the problems, the assets and liabilities of any 
community. 

In an effort to discover whether there are any recognizable 
patterns or types to which cities of medium size conform, a repre¬ 
sentative group of fifty-five municipalities was chosen for pre¬ 
liminary study. Cities from every section of the country, which 
appeared to be representative of all functional types, were selected. 
Recourse was had to the federal census; data were assembled on 
nationality and racial composition, age distribution, school at¬ 
tendance, marital status, occupation, and similar social char¬ 
acteristics for each of the selected cities. Information was also 
assembled on religious affiliations. An analysis of these many 
materials made it evident that the census reports on occupational 
distribution were the most significant in indicating the general 
functions and social organization of the city. 

Urban functions vary with the city’s geographic position and 
its relation to other population groupings, and are most clearly 
reflected in the occupational distribution of those gainfully em¬ 
ployed. One need not be a follower of Karl Marx to recognize 
the economic basis of social organization and the extent to which 
all aspects of the culture pattern, including religious organization, 
are influenced by the way people earn their living. The study 
of the role of the church in cities which are of similar size but 
perform different economic functions makes this relation abun¬ 
dantly clear.* 

Occupational Groupings 

A detailed, systematic classification of occupations has been 
prepared by the Bureau of the Census. The first two divisions, 
“ Agriculture ” and “ Forestry and Fishing,” which are grouped 
together in the bureau’s study, have small significance for Medi- 
* Compare chaps. 12, 13, and 14. 


29 


Mediopolis: The Pattern and Its Variants 

opolis since very few of its residents are employed in these fields. 
Where the city limits have been rapidly extended there will be 
a larger proportion of farmers, usually engaged in truck-garden¬ 
ing or horticulture. However, land values are too high to per¬ 
mit of the use of much ground within the city for ordinary farming 
purposes. 

The third occupational division in the census is “ Extraction 
of Minerals.” This again is for our purposes a relatively un¬ 
important grouping, except for an occasional city such as Tulsa 
or Long Beach, which have numerous oilwells, and Scranton and 
Wilkes-Barre, where a large percentage of the men are engaged 
in coal mining. Since the extractive industries involve much 
the same type of work as does heavy manufacturing, and since 
their employees are drawn from similar economic and cultural 
groups, the workers within this division are included with those 
in the manufacturing industries throughout this study. 

Fourth in the official listing is “ Manufacturing and Mechanical 
Industries.” Under this head the census groups such divergent 
occupational types as mill and factory operators, laborers (tex¬ 
tile, steel, etc.), and machinists. These occupations offer em¬ 
ployment to a much larger percentage of the population in some 
cities than in others. Dearborn and Gary, with more than half 
their workers listed under this head, stand at one extreme, while 
Atlantic City and Evanston, with only two in ten so engaged, 
are at the other. 

Treated as a separate class in this study, although included 
under mechanical industries in the census, are the “ Building 
Trades,” whose workers include carpenters, electricians, painters, 
and plumbers. In most cities these workers constitute about six 
per cent of those employed. They are tabulated separately so 
that the full extent and significance of the manufacturing in¬ 
dustries may be clear for comparative purposes. 

The next division is headed “ Transportation and Communica¬ 
tion ” and includes those engaged in road and street work, chauf¬ 
feurs and garage owners, railroad, express, telephone and tele- 


30 


City and Church in Transition 

graph employees, radio operators, and aviators. Here again cities 
of mediopolitan size show interesting variation. In most of them 
the number employed in these occupations ranges from 5 to 10 
per cent, but there are exceptions. Altoona, for example, in which 
are located the Pennsylvania railroad shops, is a division point 
on the road, and 20 per cent of its workers are engaged in trans¬ 
portation. 

No city can exist without trade. Under the head of “ Trade ” 
the census groups advertisers, bankers, insurance men, retailers 
and wholesalers, salespeople, newsboys, and undertakers. It 
might be assumed that two cities with equal populations would 
utilize the services of approximately the same number of “ busi¬ 
ness people,” but oddly enough this does not seem to be the case; 
some industrial suburbs have as few as 10 or 12 per cent of 
those gainfully employed so listed (Cicero, Dearborn, and Eliza¬ 
beth), while some residential suburbs, like Evanston or Lakewood, 
have proportionately twice as many engaged in such occupations. 
Obviously there is an important difference among these five 
cities, even though each of them is adjacent to a great metropolis. 

“ Public Service ” includes persons serving on the fire and 
police departments, guards, watchmen, sailors, soldiers, etc. Most 
cities have approximately two per cent of their population en¬ 
gaged in these callings. Military or naval bases naturally show 
a higher percentage; for example, Norfolk has n per cent and 
San Diego 13 per cent listed under this head. 

“ Professional Service ” includes actors, architects, chemists, 
clergymen, dentists, lawyers, musicians, physicians and surgeons, 
teachers, and technical engineers, together with their attendants 
or helpers. Here again superficial observation might lead one to 
expect practical uniformity among the cities, since there are 
schools, churches, and theaters in each and since everyone has 
need on occasion of the services of dentists, doctors, and lawyers. 
However, there are decided contrasts. Industrial suburbs (e. g., 
Camden and Cicero) have only four or five per cent engaged in 
professional pursuits, while Cleveland Heights has almost 19 per 


3i 


Mediopolis: The Pattern and Its Variants 

cent of its gainfully employed so classified. Such differences have 
significance for all other aspects of the community life and will 
certainly exert an influence on the work of the churches. 

Under “ Domestic and Personal Service ” are listed barbers, 
cleaners and dyers, hotel operators, rooming house keepers, jani¬ 
tors, launderers, porters, waiters, and — most important of all 
in many communities — “ domestics.” If general standards of 
living are low, people will be financially unable to employ servants. 
Consequently far fewer persons earn their living in these pursuits 
in industrial centers than in exclusive residential and resort cities. 
For example, in Atlantic City one out of every three workers 
is so employed, while in nearby Camden the ratio is one in 
ten, and even this is higher than in Cicero (one in twenty). In 
the south, where there is a large rural colored population eager 
for urban employment, there are more engaged in domestic and 
personal service. Montgomery has 28 per cent of its working 
population in this division, nearly all of them Negroes, while 
northern cities, similar in practically every other respect, have 
only 12 to 14 per cent so employed. 

The final division of the census report is “ Clerical,” and in¬ 
cludes agents, bookkeepers, stenographers, clerks (other than in 
stores), and collectors. This is commonly called the “white- 
collar ” group of occupations. There are in the United States 
certain white-collar suburbs, so named because a large proportion 
of their residents find employment in these lines of work within 
the adjacent metropolis. Such cities are seldom the most aristo¬ 
cratic but they definitely rank above the industrial suburban 
communities in standard of living. Lakewood, a suburb of Cleve¬ 
land, 20 per cent of whose population is listed as clerical, can be 
compared with the more exclusive Cleveland Heights, which has 
15 per cent employed in clerical work. Most cities however show 
fewer than 10 per cent in this classification. 


32 


City and Church in Transition 


Types of Mediopolis 

Examination of the occupational data assembled above affords 
a basis for classification of all cities in our population grouping. 
Five types can be clearly differentiated: * 

1. The “ standard ” city is one which dominates its own hinter¬ 
land and therefore is to be distinguished from suburban or satel¬ 
lite centers. It may be described as a commercial city, contain¬ 
ing within itself all the necessary functions and supplying the 
needs not only of its own citizens but also of those living within 
its sphere of influence. 

2. The industrial city, while it is measurably independent of 
metropolitan areas and sets the patterns for its own immediate 
hinterland, has specialized in certain industries. This specializa¬ 
tion has influenced its development and brought in a large number 
of unskilled and semi-skilled workers who are employed in its 
various factories and mills. Naturally a larger proportion of 
immigrants, first and second generation, will be found here. Be¬ 
cause of the lower general standards of living there will be fewer 
persons in domestic and personal service and in professional 
service. The economic function, and therefore the pattern of 
life, in the industrial city will differ from that in the commercial 
center. 

3. The industrial suburb is to be distinguished from the in¬ 
dustrial city by its greater specialization in manufacturing. It 
has less economic independence and performs fewer of the essen¬ 
tial functions of a city, depending for these on its larger neighbor. 

4. The residential suburb is another example of specialization, 
possible only within a large metropolitan area. A higher propor¬ 
tion of its population is engaged in trade and professional service 
and a lower proportion in industry, than in any other urban type. 
It again is a partial city, although it differs greatly in its social 
composition from the industrial suburb. 

* Cf. Appendix II, which presents the percentage of distribution of employed 
persons by occupations, according to urban types. 


33 


Mediopolis: The Pattern and Its Variants 

5. Yet another type of “ independent ” city is the highly special¬ 
ized resort city. Miami and Atlantic City are two excellent il¬ 
lustrations. Although few in number, resort cities offer an inter¬ 
esting variant and present some unique problems for organized 
religion as well as for other cultural institutions. 

On the basis of this classification twenty-seven cities,* repre¬ 
senting each of the above types and also all geographical sections 
of the country, were selected as a sample for more intensive study. 
A detailed treatment of these cities and their characteristics is 
presented in the five chapters that follow. 

* See Appendix I for a list of these cities, their populations in 1920 and 1930, 
and other demographic data. 



The Commercial City: 
The Prototype of Mediopolis 


A S ONE drives across the continent most of his mileage 
will be through the open countryside, but from time to 
. time he finds himself, almost without warning, rolling 
into the outskirts of a small or large city. Frequently he is at 
a loss to account for its presence. Why should there be such a 
bustling center out in the midst of the prairie ? Why was it not 
situated ten miles back? How is it possible for so many people 
to earn a living here — unless they take in each other’s washing ? 

There are discoverable reasons for the location of any given 
city. These reasons, although they vary in their application to 
different types of cities, generally fall into two classes. 

The Habitat of the Commercial City 

In the first place there is a group of factors which determines 
the maximum agricultural and industrial development of the 
area (including from a hundred to five thousand or more square 
miles) which is destined to become the hinterland of a city. Of 
significance are the fertility of the soil, the nature of the vegeta¬ 
tion, rainfall, availability of large supplies of water, transporta¬ 
tion facilities such as navigable lakes and waterways. These 
furnish the basis for urban as well as rural life. Only in so 
far as rural dwellers are able to produce a surplus over and above 
what they actually consume is any urban life possible, for it is 
this surplus which the farmer exchanges for the products of the 
town. This fact not only explains the city’s dependence on the 


34 




The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 35 

hinterland but also makes clear what is the foundation for all 
urban specialization. 

The drought in the plains states decreased the resources of the 
countryside. Should such a condition continue over a period of 
years the inevitable result would be a decline in commercial ac¬ 
tivity, accompanied by a corresponding loss in urban population. 
In contrast, and yet conforming to the same principles, is the 
situation in the Santa Ana valley of southern California, where 
through man’s ingenuity in providing a constant water supply an 
arid region has been transformed into a highly cultivated and 
productive fruit growing center. Here population density on the 
soil is high, and many cities thrive because of the steady demand 
for their services and products. The maximum commercial and 
industrial development of any given area is determined by these 
natural factors, by the state of man’s development, his skills and 
inventive genius and methods of production, and by the distribu¬ 
tion of the products of agriculture and industry. 

In the second place, there are certain factors which determine 
the specific location of a city within a hinterland. After account¬ 
ing for the extent of productive activity within a region, we are 
still faced by the question: Where will these needs be met — 
in a number of small cities spread at equal distances throughout 
the area, or in one central city with a number of subordinate 
small towns and villages surrounding it and mediating its in¬ 
fluence and products to the countryside? This question also is 
answerable. To be sure, there are certain fortuitous elements 
in the selection of an urban site, such as the determination of 
some early pioneers that the metropolis-to-be shall be centered 
on their soil; the success, in the early days, of a group of men 
in shaping the plans of the road commissioners; or the arbitrary 
placement of a station or junction by the railroad. Yet such 
factors are minor and while they might influence the location of 
a city by five or ten miles, pressure groups with all their shrewd¬ 
ness could not make a city grow if the requisite development of 
the hinterland were lacking. 


36 City and Church in Transition 

One village may have an advantage over its neighbors at the 
start because it is served by two railroads instead of one, because 
it is a terminal point, or because it is located where the railroad 
crosses a navigable river. The city of Chicago could not have 
developed twenty miles north of its present site, for even though 
the Chicago river was a poor enough stream, still it offered many 
possibilities for exploitation. The most important factor in de¬ 
termining the exact location of a city is the set of influences which 
give a site advantages over its competitors in contacting and 
therefore serving surrounding communities. More farmers drive 
to a town that has good roads than to one reached only by poor 
roads. The increased trade brought by better transportation 
facilities not only makes possible the development of larger and 
more attractive stores but also augments the city’s influence and 
political power. In the days of transportation by buckboard a 
farmer could not go to a town more than ten miles away if he 
wished to make the round trip in half a day. Now such a trip 
can be made in an hour; and naturally the farmer and particularly 
his young people do not hesitate to drive fifty or a hundred miles 
to get to a “ real city.” The widespread use of the automobile, 
then, has increased the dominance of the city at the expense 
of smaller surrounding towns. 

These factors which condition the size, rate of growth, and 
sphere of influence of a city are especially significant for the 
“ commercial ” town standing supreme in its hinterland. Other 
complicating elements, such as the introduction of intense indus¬ 
trial activity or the proximity of a metropolis, will be discussed 
in subsequent chapters. The cities here under consideration repre¬ 
sent the more fundamental type. They are “ natural ” aggre¬ 
gations of the sort which from time immemorial have grown out 
of man’s varied associations; they are the direct expression of 
the economic and social life of one particular region whose culture 
they dominate and on whose activities they almost literally sub¬ 
sist. 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 37 

A good illustration of the commercial city is El Paso, free as it 
is from competition with other cities of similar or larger size, the 
nearest, Austin, being approximately four hundred miles distant. 
The undisputed control which El Paso enjoys over so large an 
area would be impossible in a more fertile region. Des Moines, 
which is not more than one hundred twenty-five miles from 
Omaha, and which thus serves a more restricted area, is larger 
than El Paso and has at least equal prospects for future growth, 
because while the hinterland is smaller its fertility and con¬ 
sequently its population density are greater; a larger city can 
therefore be supported. Des Moines as definitely dominates the 
state of Iowa as El Paso does western Texas, New Mexico, and 
southern Arizona. However, cities the size of Mediopolis can¬ 
not dominate when they are within fifty miles of New York City 
or Philadelphia, for in that case they themselves become satellites 
swinging about a larger sun. 

In the present chapter attention will be confined to the com¬ 
mercial city which, directly dependent on its hinterland, has a 
gradual and not a spasmodic growth, developing in the same tempo 
as the surrounding areas which are in turn dependent on it. The 
city, serving the primary needs of such an area, experiences a 
more symmetrical development of its business and industrial 
life. The wide variety of demands made upon it prevents its 
becoming a one-industry town. 

This close relationship between the commercial city and its 
surrounding territory is also a result of the fact that the popula¬ 
tion of the urban center has been drawn from the region which 
it serves. All cities are dependent for their expansion on the 
influx of people either from abroad or from farms and towns. 
Few owe their growth to natural increase (excess of births over 
deaths within the city). 

While the great metropolis draws people from the entire nation 
as well as from other lands, and while the industrial cities have 
grown by immigration from Europe, from the rural south or from 


38 City and Church in Transition 

Mexico, and suburbs have developed chiefly at the expense of 
the neighboring metropolis, the commercial city alone has emerged 
out of its own region. Its people are the children of its own 
hinterland, so that the two are tied together not only by trade 
but also by blood. The commercial city, in a word, is the eco¬ 
logical epitome of the living standards, traditions, attitudes, and 
aspirations of the people within its radius. 

Tentacles of the Town 

Assuming the absence of all physical barriers, a city would 
develop symmetrically, reaching out at about the same rate in 
all directions. It would form something of a star shaped pattern, 
development being most rapid along the main highways radiating 
like spokes from a hub, least rapid in the sections between such 
roads. Actually, physical barriers of one type or another are 
almost always present. The city may be located on a lake or 
ocean shore, as are Atlantic City, Norfolk, and New Bedford. 
In this case there can be no development in the one direction. 
Gary, restricted by the lake to the north, is compelled to expand 
to the east, west, and south, achieving one-half of the star pat¬ 
tern. Or a city may be hemmed in, as is Duluth between high 
hills and Lake Superior. Such a configuration makes for a string¬ 
like development of the town. Duluth extends twenty-three 
miles from southwest to northeast, but for the most part only 
two miles in the opposite direction. If a city is located on a 
bluff along a river bank and the other side of the stream is low 
and swampy, development will move back from the river to the 
high land, leaving the lower area for factories and inferior dwell¬ 
ing districts or for desultory farming. Montgomery is a case in 
point * A city such as Evansville, situated on the bank of a very 
broad river, naturally will not expand to the opposite bank. Or 
again, an international boundary may influence the development, 
as in El Paso or Niagara Falls. While another community may 
be established across the frontier and there will be much com- 


* See p. Si. 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 39 

ing and going, yet because of international trade regulations and, 
in some cases, difference in language and traditions, expansion 
will be warped by the border barrier. 

The factors mentioned thus far will shape the city’s pattern 
and to a considerable extent that of the hinterland. However,, 
there are other types of barriers which, though they do not affect 
the city directly, shape the hinterland. A mountain barrier ten 
or fifty miles away from a city (Salt Lake City) will limit de¬ 
velopment in that direction and skew the trade area. The sphere 
of influence is also limited by the proximity of a larger city. 
Lincoln is about fifty miles southwest of Omaha; consequently, 
while the pressure of Omaha from the northeast is felt at its very 
doors, its own sphere of influence stretches far out to the west 
and south. In similar manner people living in towns and rural 
areas east of Stockton look to that city, but those to the west 
look to Oakland and San Francisco. Manchester and Boston 
afford another illustration of the influence of a large city in shap¬ 
ing the trade area of a smaller one. Suburbs, on the other hand, 
can scarcely be said to exert any pull; adjoining the metropolis 
as they do, their influence is incorporated into the general pres¬ 
tige and dominance of the major center. For example, such cities 
as Evanston, Lakewood, or Mount Vernon cannot support a 
newspaper of the caliber of the Des Moines Register and Tribune; 
their residents prefer to read the metropolitan dailies. 

There was a time in America when rivers and canals were of 
predominant importance because most of the trade was carried 
on via the water route. Then came the railroads and, more re¬ 
cently, paved highways and airlines. In the present era rail¬ 
roads and automobile routes are of maximum commercial signifi¬ 
cance. As a general rule, the more important the city the better 
the railroad service. Chicago, the railroad center of the nation, 
is served by thirty-two different lines. Cities of the size of Medi¬ 
opolis must also be taken into account by railroad lines. In 
fact, one interesting feature of American economic development 
is the mutual aid which cities and railroads have given one an- 


40 


City and Church in Transition 

other in their common growth. Fifty or eighty years ago rail¬ 
road lines were laid to serve the population centers, and with 
their appearance the cities grew more rapidly, becoming an im¬ 
portant source of revenue for the lines. Montgomery is served 
by six main line railways, as are Wichita and Salt Lake City; 
Des Moines has nine. Apparently — excluding for the moment 
the suburbs of the great metropolitan areas — no city can attain 
to a population of a hundred thousand without extensive rail¬ 
road service. 

Within the past ten years the paved highway has offered severe 
competition to the railroad, and cities eager to maintain or ex¬ 
tend their contacts with the surrounding region have spent large 
sums of money and persuaded state governments to invest even 
more for the building of arterial highways. The more effectively 
this is done the more closely are the surrounding towns linked 
to the major city. 

An interesting conception of the city’s influence over its hinter¬ 
land can be gained if one drives out from its central business 
district fifty miles or so into the country and notices the boxes 
for the distribution of the city’s newspapers. Near the municipal 
boundary practically every householder has such a box in front 
of his home. Ten miles farther out perhaps only a fourth of 
the homes will have them, and as one drives on they rapidly 
thin out. People who read the city’s papers are aware not only 
of its opinions but also of its bargains. They are potential patrons, 
and most of them go directly to town to make their more im¬ 
portant purchases, especially if the desired item is subject to 
fashion. 

The influence of Des Moines on its hinterland can be effectively 
demonstrated by an analysis of the circulation of the daily and 
Sunday editions of the Des Moines Register and Tribune. There 
are ninety-nine counties in the state of Iowa. In seventy-four 
of these the Daily Register and Tribune has a coverage of 20 per 
cent or over, the heaviest coverage being in the central part of 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 41 

the state where the influence of other large cities is least felt. 
The eastern counties are served by Dubuque, Davenport, Cedar 
Rapids, and Burlington; the western, by Omaha, Council Bluffs, 
and Sioux City, and in these territories the influence of Des 
Moines is naturally less. The Sunday Register covers every 
county in the state by 20 per cent or more, except for four in 
the southwest corner which are under the sway of Omaha. These 
figures indicate the extent of Des Moines’ trade area. 

The hinterland’s relationship to the dominant city is best seen 
in the trade which is carried on between them. There is a close 
connection between the purchasing power of an area and the 
size of its city. The retailers of subordinate communities look 
to the wholesalers of Mediopolis for their stocks of goods and 
ideas. Local bankers do their rediscounting through the larger 
banks which only a sizable city can support. Small-town insurance 
men report to their divisional office in the city, and dentists, phy¬ 
sicians and teachers hold their district conferences there. The 
styles for the coming season are mediated from Paris and New 
York City through the big department stores of Mediopolis. 
Every expansion of business in the smaller towns and cities is 
reflected in a spurt of commercial activity in this important center. 
Such a city is a register, a barometer, of economic conditions 
among its smaller neighbors; it prospers as they do, or suffers 
when a depression hits them. 

The development of the chain store is bringing the larger city 
into the smaller town. Not only grocery but department store 
chains, such as those owned by the J. C. Penny and F. W. Wool- 
worth companies, are finding it advisable to bring their goods 
closer to the ultimate consumer. Even the large mail-order houses 
are establishing outlet stores in cities of ten thousand and less. 
On the surface this movement would seem to run counter to the 
city’s trend toward concentration and consolidation and might 
be termed a dispersion of its functions and culture. But as a 
matter of fact even where such stores are established in the local 


42 


City and Church in Transition 

communities the regional office, with its financial control, its 
warehouses, and its administrative supervisor, remains in the 
large city or metropolis. 

The small town or rural community can satisfy the social and 
recreational needs of its people more adequately than their eco¬ 
nomic wants. Persons living within ten or even twenty-five miles 
of the large city will go there occasionally to patronize a theater 
or a cabaret or, more rarely, to attend church or hear a lecture. 
But such activity does not represent membership in any organiza¬ 
tion, neither does it foster intimate friendships. At most, a city 
meets directly only a few of the social and intellectual needs 
of its hinterland; nevertheless it does set many patterns which 
influence the cultural and political life of the local communities 
which surround it. Teachers, for example, return from an in¬ 
spection tour of the city’s schools to put new educational theories 
into practice in their own classrooms. Noted ministers of Medi- 
opolis’ churches are in demand as after-dinner speakers, and their 
advice is sought on the improvement of local church programs. 
In these respects, as in the case of newspaper circulation, the 
influence of Mediopolis varies in inverse ratio to the distance 
traveled from it. 

Occupational Diversity in Mediopolis 

Every city of one hundred thousand population will show aston¬ 
ishing diversity in its occupational life. There will certainly be 
tradespeople, insurance agents, skilled and unskilled laborers, 
technicians, public employees, and persons engaged in profes¬ 
sional or domestic work. Cities exist to perform such specialized 
services. Medium-sized municipalities, however, in their con¬ 
centration in certain occupational fields present surprising con¬ 
trasts to one another. Scranton, because of the great coal veins 
near by, has over 20 per cent of its working population engaged 
in mining. Norfolk, an important naval base, has 11 per cent 
of its population employed in “ public service,” most of them in 
the United States Navy. Gary’s big industry is steel, and prac- 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 43 

tically 60 per cent of its working population is engaged in manu¬ 
facturing and mechanical trades. Once more, the commercial 
city can be termed the norm. It stands in a position midway be¬ 
tween industrial cities and suburbs on the one hand and resi¬ 
dential suburbs and resort cities on the other, a fact which the 
occupational data in this and subsequent chapters make abun¬ 
dantly clear. 

However, commercial cities vary among themselves. Climate 
may be an important factor. El Paso, which boasts of three hun¬ 
dred thirty sunny days in the average year, claims to be a health 
resort; Duluth does not. Such differences influence the adver¬ 
tising of the chamber of commerce, but, more important, they 
shape the life of the city and the occupational distribution. Des 
Moines, which is a state capital, has a larger proportion of per¬ 
sons employed in clerical or white-collar jobs than Rockford, 
which is simply a county seat town. Some cities, because of their 
history and geographic position, have an unusually large pro¬ 
portion of Negroes or persons of some other race or nationality. 
This is in part both the result and the cause of the type of pro¬ 
duction, occupational distribution, and living standards of the 
municipality. For instance, 45 per cent of the population in 
Montgomery is colored. Because of the economic position of the 
Negro, his labor can be secured at lower cost, and even families 
with modest incomes can afford hired help. A sizable propor¬ 
tion of all those gainfully employed in the city (three out of 
ten) are engaged in domestic service; nearly all of these are 
Negro women. 

A study of the work patterns within a city offers one of the 
best keys to an understanding of its economic life and character¬ 
istics. Subsequent chapters will show the importance of this 
information in understanding the social and cultural life and in 
interpreting and solving problems of organized religion. 


44 


City and Church in Transition 


Occupational Distribution in Commercial Cities 

Table I presents the occupational distribution of those gain¬ 
fully employed in six typical commercial cities, chosen both be¬ 
cause they dominate the outlying regions and because they are 
geographically representative of the country. Agriculture and 
forestry are of little significance in the occupational structure 
of these cities, the slight variance in percentage being due to 
such fortuitous factors as the inclusion of a definitely rural area 
within the municipal boundaries. The building trades employ 
about the same proportion of workers in each city. Wichita, 
which has developed rapidly in the past decade, naturally has 
given employment to a few more builders. 

Of greater importance are the manufacturing and mechanical 
industries (the extractive are of minor significance in commercial 
centers). Even in the commercial city these industries make up 
a major occupational division; nor is this surprising, as any city 
the size of Mediopolis, served by the transportation facilities 
which have made its growth possible, will contain a number of 
manufacturing establishments, most of them small, and will tend 
to attract additional factories. Since few commercial cities of 
this size are located in the densely populated northern and eastern 
sections of the country — the chief market for most products — 
only rarely does any large-scale manufacturing take place in 
them. When a mammoth industry enters a community, such 
as oil refining in Tulsa or automobile manufacturing in Pontiac, 
the nature of the city is changed and it loses its definitely com¬ 
mercial aspect. A comparison of industrial with commercial 
cities in the following chapter will demonstrate this point. 

In every city transportation and communication furnish jobs 
for at least 5 to 10 per cent of the workers. The six sample cities 
here treated show little variation under this heading, except 
Duluth, which because of its terminal position at the head of 
Lake Superior naturally engages more persons in transportation. 

Apart from manufacturing, more people in these cities earn 


OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION IN COMMERCIAL CITIES 

By Per Cent 

Occupation Des Moines Duluth El Paso Montgomery Salt Lake City Wichita 




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46 City and Church in Transition 

their living through trade, buying and selling, than in any other 
type of work. Approximately one person in five is so employed, 
as against a ratio of one in eight for the United States as a 
whole. The lower percentage under trade for Duluth is again 
due to its geographic position. Situated on the lake, with un¬ 
settled country to the north and a sparse population round about, 
its trade area is less well developed. Were it not for its im¬ 
portance as a transportation center Duluth would certainly be 
much smaller. 

In commercial cities, public service accounts for about two 
per cent of those gainfully employed. The only striking variation 
is to be found in Salt Lake City, where the presence of a fort, 
in which in 1930 some eight hundred men were stationed, raised 
the figure to three per cent. 

With the one exception of Montgomery, there is an appreciable 
uniformity in the number of men and women engaged in pro¬ 
fessional service in these cities. Here the smaller use of profes¬ 
sional services, as indicated by the census, is accompanied by 
wage rates which are definitely lower than in the other sample 
cities. This is a bias due in part to the large Negro population 
which has a lower average standard of living, and this in turn 
increases the number of persons seeking employment as domestic 
workers. When income and living standards are lower for a whole 
population group there is less demand for teachers, doctors, den¬ 
tists, and other professional persons. 

In the consideration of the next occupational division, domestic 
and personal service, it is advisable to give attention to the per¬ 
centage of women gainfully employed. In Duluth and Salt Lake 
City one out of every four paid workers is a woman. In Mont¬ 
gomery the ratio is more than one in three, an increase accounted 
for by the large number of Negro women in domestic service. 
Indeed eight thousand out of the total of eleven thousand five 
hundred women gainfully employed are Negroes, practically all 
of them in domestic service. In other cities wages for such 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 47 

service are appreciably higher than in Montgomery and conse¬ 
quently fewer female servants are hired. The fact explains the 
high percentage (28.8 per cent) of workers listed under this classi¬ 
fication in Montgomery in comparison with other cities. The 
situation in El Paso is much the same except for the fact that 
the cheap labor is now supplied by Mexicans (57 per cent of the 
population) instead of Negroes. Des Moines follows Montgomery 
in respect to the proportion of women it employs; however, the 
reason for its doing so is quite different. Des Moines, a state 
capital, affords many opportunities for women workers in its 
governmental boards and bureaus as well as in its schools. Here 
over six thousand women are employed in clerical occupations as 
compared with one thousand in Montgomery; on the other hand, 
in Des Moines forty-five hundred women are employed in domestic 
service, while the figure for Montgomery, a much smaller city, 
is seven thousand. 

While occupational data are illuminating in a study of the 
status, characteristics, and problems of a city, one should not 
conclude that such information tells the whole story. Other 
questions must also be asked. What is the historical background 
of the city? Whence do the people come? Have nationality and 
race influenced the culture of the city? What about its vital 
statistics, birth and death rates, age and sex distribution? Are 
educational standards high? What is the marriage rate? Is it 
a city of homes or are there many transients ? 

While commercial cities are similar in many respects each has 
its own distinctive characteristics, which are due in part to its 
location. Montgomery, a southern city with a large Negro popu¬ 
lation, will naturally be quite different in its occupational organ¬ 
ization from Duluth, many of whose people have a Scandinavian 
background. Differences in the cultural life of these cities will be 
even more marked; for example, the Lutheran and Catholic 
churches which dominate the religious life of Minnesota play only 
a very subordinate role in Montgomery. These cultural and so- 


48 City and Church in Transition 

cial differences can best be presented by means of brief word pic¬ 
tures of the histories and cultural backgrounds of a few commercial 
cities. 


A City of the Western Plains 

Out on the vast prairie, where less than a century ago Indians 
and buffalo held undisputed sway, there is today an active, bustling 
city of 111,110 inhabitants, self-conscious, eager and energetic. 
These, the immediate descendants of the pioneers, are not yet so old 
or so sophisticated as to have lost the buoyancy and enthusiasm 
of their fathers. 

The site of Wichita, just below the juncture of the Big and 
Little Arkansas rivers, was a natural stopping place for the cross¬ 
country migrants of the nineteenth century. Before the white man 
came an Indian village stood at this point; later an Indian trading 
post with a meager supply of staples was opened for the few trap¬ 
pers and courageous travelers who passed by. Wichita became 
the terminus of the famous Chisholm Trail, along which Texas 
cattlemen drove their herds. In 1870 the village was formally 
organized and by 1880 it had a population of five thousand per¬ 
sons. As civilization pushed farther and farther west, this great 
farming and cattle raising area in the geographical center of the 
nation attracted many a pioneer, who staked his claim here. As 
the prairies were settled Wichita grew, meeting the increasing de¬ 
mands of a multiplying rural population. 

Wichita has always been closely tied to the soil, and is today 
still keenly aware that its prosperity depends upon the well-being 
of its hinterland. One of its most important industries is milling; 
hard wheat, which became so essential a product during and after 
the World War, has made Wichita — and the whole state of Kansas 
— one of the leading interior grain markets of the country. As¬ 
sembling plants and outlets for farm implement companies, an¬ 
other industry dependent on agriculture, provide employment for 
many workers. Wichita is an important shipping point for cattle 
and other livestock, and also has a meat packing and processing 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 49 

industry of its own, evidence that cattle raising is a specialty of 
the area. The discovery of oil, one of Kansas’ richest natural re¬ 
sources, and the process of exploiting it, have attracted oil well 
equipment companies. However, of all its industries Wichita 
takes chief pride in the expansion of aircraft manufacture, for 
which it claims to be the most important center in the United 
States. Approximately 21 per cent of the employed Wichitans 
are engaged in manufacturing, much of which is directly related 
to the needs of the hinterland. Over 23 per cent of its workers 
are employed in trade, an indication of the importance of the 
city as a commercial center for the territory. 

With no closer rivals than Tulsa, Topeka, and Kansas City to 
the east, and a clear field to the west as far as Pueblo and Denver, 
Wichita is an urban oasis in a dry and somewhat monotonous 
landscape. With no natural physical barriers except the river, 
its development has been almost symmetrical. Railroad lines 
(six of them serve the city) have entered from all directions, 
cutting through at various angles. These and the Wichita Drain¬ 
age Canal divide the communities within the city. Advantage 
has been taken of the river and other beauty spots of the area 
in the planning of parks, boulevards, and recreation grounds. 

Wichita’s population, as is typical of the commercial city, has 
been drawn from the region round about; as a consequence, in 
1930, practically 92 per cent were native whites, an extraordinarily 
homogeneous population. Negroes composed five per cent, while 
the remaining three per cent were foreign-born. The first and 
second generation immigrants are almost entirely of northern 
European stock. With this information in mind, it is not sur¬ 
prising to learn that school attendance is high, 68 per cent of 
those sixteen and seventeen years of age and 33 per cent of those 
eighteen to twenty being in school; the illiteracy rate is less than 
one per cent. In the matter of religious organization Wichita, 
like its hinterland, is predominantly Protestant, although it may 
surprise the average layman to learn that over half the “ adult ” 
population (over thirteen years of age) is unaffiliated with any 


50 City and Church in Transition 

church. The Methodist family of churches,* with twenty-one 
congregations, numbers io per cent of the adult population in its 
membership, while the Baptist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic 
denominations each number five per cent. Other communions 
are represented by smaller percentages. 

Drought and depression have struck Kansas and the plains 
territory with particular force in the past decade. The farmer’s 
lowered purchasing power has been felt not only by village mer¬ 
chants, but also by the big wholesale houses in Wichita and directly 
or indirectly by practically the entire urban population. An ac¬ 
tive chamber of commerce in this city has helped to keep busi¬ 
nessmen aware of their dependence upon the hinterland; and with 
the return of prosperity in 1935 it resumed its annual “ good will 
tour ” throughout the territory. A hundred and twenty-five men 
participate, visiting towns and villages, renewing contacts and 
gaining new customers. This is a concrete expression and recog¬ 
nition of a relationship which, because of geographic proximity, 
population homogeneity, and similarity of tradition and back¬ 
ground, has existed between Wichita and its hinterland for half 
a century. 

A City of the Old South 

Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, centrally located in the 
state on a high bluff above the Alabama river, enshrines much of 
the history and the culture pattern of the Old South. It was the 
“ First Capital of the Confederacy ” where Jefferson Davis was 
sworn in as president in the troublous days of 1861. Mont¬ 
gomery’s citizens still look upon that period in its history with 
much enthusiasm and affection. However, many changes sepa¬ 
rate the thriving city of today with a population of 66,079, from 
the town of i860 with its population of 8,843. Railroads have 
converged in Montgomery and with them have come industries: 
railroad repair shops, furniture and food factories, and textile and 
other industries which have been built about cotton, seeds as well 
* Cf. footnote on p. 143. 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 51 

as fibers. Commercial expansion has kept pace with the increase 
in manufacturing. 

The symmetrical development of Montgomery has been pre¬ 
vented by the configuration of the land. Situated on the south 
bank of the river just below a great bend, it has developed on 
three sides, following the higher ground. To the northeast lie 
the industrial areas, the railroad yards and the poorer dwellings. 
On the rolling terrain to the east, south, and west are the expanding 
residential areas of the city. To the north and west urban de¬ 
velopment has been hindered by a low swampy area which is fre¬ 
quently flooded. 

Like other cities of the south Montgomery possesses a number 
of social and economic traits which set it apart from cities in other 
sections of the United States. These traits have their primary 
root in the distinctive population composition of the southern 
states. For example, only one per cent of the persons living in 
Montgomery in 1930 were foreign-born. This low percentage, 
typical of southern cities, is explicable. The rapidly expanding 
industries of the north offered the best work opportunities for 
immigrants, who also entered via northern ports; further, the 
immigrant, even though his standard of living was low, could 
not successfully underbid the Negro in southern cities. The first 
and second generation immigrant groups play much the same 
role in northern cities as Negroes do in southern. They do the 
less skilled, menial, and poorly paid work. Even when Negroes 
are engaged in the “ better ” occupations the rate of pay is rela¬ 
tively low. A recent study of the salaries of Negro teachers in 
the schools of Alabama showed an average of $351 per annum, 
and for elementary schoolteachers $307. Another study indicated 
that the average for all elementary and secondary schoolteachers 
in the United States was $1227. Such differences in rates of pay 
are reflected in all phases of the economic structure. For example, 
when the pay for teachers is low, it is not surprising to find farm 
laborers earning only ninety cents per day without board and 
unskilled male laborers employed on city street work averaging 


52 City and Church in Transition 

twenty-three cents an hour. Since wages are small and also be¬ 
cause the traditions of the south set the pattern, a large proportion 
of the whites find it financially possible and socially desirable to 
employ Negro servants. In Montgomery 29 per cent of all em¬ 
ployed workers are engaged in domestic and personal service, all 
but three hundred of the sixty-eight hundred so occupied being 
Negroes. This is twice the proportion similarly employed in 
northern and western cities of the same size and type. 

The unusually large female population in Montgomery (86 
males to 100 females) is accounted for by the large number of 
Negro women who have come to the city to secure work as domes¬ 
tic servants. Indeed one may say that Montgomery is two cities, 
not one. There is the white city which owns and controls; de¬ 
pendent on it is the Negro city, almost equal in population but 
definitely subordinate and supplementary. The employers are 
whites; the colored are nearly all employees. The latter are less 
educated (white illiteracy, 0.4 per cent; colored, 19.9 per cent) 
and more poorly paid. Largely because of the low economic 
status of the Negro and the meager facilities for advanced edu¬ 
cational training, relatively few Negro children beyond the age of 
fifteen are found in school. Taking both white and colored popu¬ 
lations into account, 22.4 per cent of the young people from 
eighteen to twenty years of age attend school. While this is a 
higher percentage than that prevailing in a number of other cities 
(El Paso, 21 per cent) and in the United States as a whole (21.4 
per cent), it falls considerably below that of most cities of this 
size.* Such figures are significant since they not only reflect 
present economic and cultural standards but also serve to fore¬ 
cast the ability of young people to compete in the highly exact¬ 
ing years which lie ahead. 

These data all tend to confirm the conclusion that Montgomery 
is a typical city of the south, shaping the economic and cultural 
life of its hinterland as do most commercial cities, and itself in 
turn being influenced by the lower income and living standards 
* Cf. Appendix I. 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 53 

of the colored and white population in the surrounding territory. 
However, it is not unlikely that the southward movement of manu¬ 
facturing brought about by the low wage and tax rates, and the 
consequent industrialization of the south, will in time alter the 
present situation. 

A City of the North 

Far to the north of Montgomery, at the extreme western end of 
Lake Superior, lies Duluth, stretching in a narrow band from 
southwest to northeast. The main business streets run parallel 
to the lake shore and are on comparatively flat ground. Back of 
them the city rises precipitately to higher and higher levels, like 
a town on a Swiss lake. So steep is this long bluff that residents 
on the upper streets are glad to make use of a cable car to ascend 
it. Residential property on these heights is at a premium, for 
here the smoke and noise of the busy industrial districts and the 
harbor are not in evidence. Those with lower incomes must con¬ 
tent themselves with houses in the basin or across the St. Louis 
river in the town of Superior, which is just within the Wisconsin 
state line. 

Superior is as flat as Duluth is hilly. While Duluth is the chief 
city, the railroad yards and many persons engaged in transpor¬ 
tation are found in Superior. In fact, over a third of the men 
in the latter city earn their living in transportation and communi¬ 
cation. Over one-eighth of the employed persons (one-sixth of the 
employed men) in Duluth also engage in these occupations. In 
considerable measure both Duluth and Superior owe their pros¬ 
perity to their strategic positions as terminal points for navigation 
and the railroad. The great quantities of iron ore which are 
shipped through Duluth make it one of the busiest inland ports 
in North America (second in traffic on the continent). 

There is only a sparse population scattered through northern 
Minnesota and Wisconsin, and in the Canadian territory to the 
north of eastern Minnesota there has been practically no develop¬ 
ment. For this reason Duluth, while it has an extensive trade 


54 


City and Church in Transition 

area, can buy and sell less with its hinterland than, for example, 
Evansville, or many a city of this size. There will, however, be 
an increasing amount of trade as this region is further developed. 
Even now there are within the trade area of Duluth over four 
hundred thousand people in the state of Minnesota alone, and a 
large portion of Wisconsin, including Superior, also defers to it. 
This sphere of influence is well marked off by the newspaper cover¬ 
age. According to the circulation manager of the Duluth Herald- 
News Tribune, the two editions of this paper have a blanket 
coverage extending about seventy miles south of Duluth, two 
hundred and fifty miles west, and as far to the north as settle¬ 
ments are found. The circulation of newspapers to the south is 
hindered by Minneapolis and St. Paul. These cities, two hun¬ 
dred miles to the south and of greater size and prestige, reach 
much more than half-way to Duluth in their influence. 

Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota were first settled by im¬ 
migrants from northern Europe of German and Scandinavian 
stock. Even today Duluth, with a population of 101,463, num¬ 
bers almost 30,000 born in the Scandinavian countries or of 
parents who emigrated from them; an additional 6,000 are of 
Finnish, and 5,000 of German parentage. Relatively few of the 
population come from southern or central European countries. 
Canada has contributed over 10,000 residents, a third of whom 
are French Canadians. In 1930 there were only 400 Negroes in 
the entire city. Duluth stands almost at the other extreme from 
Montgomery not only in nationality and racial composition, but 
also in cultural and religious patterns. However, each one epit¬ 
omizes the culture of its area; Duluth is no more Scandinavian 
than its hinterland. 

As is the case with many cities in the north, particularly those 
which have a large foreign population (in Duluth 25,000 are 
foreign-born and 45,000 of foreign parentage) there are more men 
than women. This difference in sex distribution is particularly 
marked in the age range of thirty-five to sixty, since this group 
includes most of those who have come from abroad. 


The Commercial City: Prototype of Mediopolis 55 

The illiteracy rate in 1930 was only 1.2 per cent (in 1920 it 
was 2.4 per cent), while the rate for native whites is only 0.2 per 
cent. The people of Duluth believe in the value of education. 
More than two-thirds of the youth of the city, sixteen and seven¬ 
teen years of age, are in school, and almost one-third of those 
between eighteen and twenty attend high school or college. This 
is a very respectable showing; in another twenty years the foreign 
culture patterns which are still quite evident will practically have 
disappeared. This impending development, caused by changes 
in immigration laws and rates, will undoubtedly present new prob¬ 
lems and opportunities for the various churches of the city. 

Conclusion 

Every city, like every human being, has a personality all its 
own. No two are exactly alike; yet there are striking similarities. 
These may be due to the fact that the cities perform comparable 
functions, each within its own hinterland; or that they are located 
in the same region and therefore share the same culture pattern, 
racial distribution, and economic opportunities. Commercial 
cities, southern or northern, have more in common than have 
cities of different functional types within the same area. As has 
been indicated above they are found chiefly in the central, south¬ 
ern, and western portions of the United States. In the northeast, 
urban centers of mediopolitan size, due to the proximity of larger 
municipalities, undergo such specialization that they are generally 
more properly classed in other functional categories. 

Sketches of three cities showing important differences in char¬ 
acteristics have been presented. Yet in spite of their contrasts 
they are essentially alike. The city of Duluth, with its large 
percentage of foreign-born citizens and its dependency on trans¬ 
portation, especially of iron ore, is presented as a variant of the 
type. It deviates somewhat more widely from the norm than do 
such cities as Des Moines, Montgomery, Portland (Maine), Salt 
Lake City, Sacramento, and Wichita. The commercial city is the 
prototype for Mediopolis. It has a relatively homogeneous popu- 


56 City and Church in Transition 

lation, practically all of which comes from its own sphere of 
influence. It possesses a broad economic base, involving a con¬ 
siderable commercial development, the outgrowth of trade with 
a large or rich hinterland. Although it benefits by some manu¬ 
facturing and transportation activities it differs greatly in this 
respect from the industrial city, where these occupations are of 
major importance. Diversification in economic activity gives the 
commercial city great stability; and while it will probably not 
become a boom town, neither will it be the center of acute de¬ 
pression. 


IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIH 



The Industrial City: 
Mediopolis in Overalls 


T HE SIMILARITIES of industrial and commercial cities 
are more evident than their differences. Yet these dif¬ 
ferences suffice to make the industrial city a distinct 
type. The industrial cities of Port Arthur and Binghamton, like 
the commercial cities of Des Moines and Duluth, have their own 
hinterlands. Not one of them is dominated by a great metropolis, 
and yet the patterns of their development differ radically. The 
occupational distribution of citizens in the one pair of cities 
stands in noticeable contrast to that in the other. Commercial 
cities support more professional persons and maintain, on the 
whole, higher standards of living than industrial cities. More 
of their children continue their education through high school 
and college. There is likewise a contrast in the nationality of the 
citizenry, with resultant differences in cultural and religious loyal¬ 
ties. In short, every aspect of life seems to reflect this interesting 
contrast in urban patterns. 

An industrial city may be thought of as one in which the manu¬ 
facturing industries and mechanical trades play a dominant role 
in the workaday life of the people. Since the rest of man’s life 
cannot be divorced from the way in which he earns a living, we 
may expect to find that other aspects of political, social and even 
religious organization are profoundly influenced by the primacy 
of industry over commerce. The industrial city tends to draw 
to itself a different type of people; this in turn influences the re- 

57 



58 City and Church in Transition 

ligious as well as the recreational patterns. Whereas commercial 
cities generally employ one-fifth of their workers in manufacturing 
and allied occupations, industrial cities engage from one-third to 
two-fifths. There are corresponding differences in trade, clerical 
work, and professional and domestic service. Before examining 
the influence of the factory and mill in setting social patterns, 
it may be advisable to point out that there are three varieties of 
the industrial city. 

1. As used in this study, the term “ industrial city ” designates 
those urban centers which have one-third or more of their em¬ 
ployed citizens engaged in industry, and which, because of their 
location, are relatively free from the dominance of a large me¬ 
tropolis. They also have many traits in common with commercial 
cities: they are masters of their own trade areas and enjoy the 
political and cultural freedom upon which the commercial mu¬ 
nicipality prides itself. These form the subject of the present 
chapter. 

2. The second type of city, the industrial suburb, which devotes 
itself primarily to manufacturing and mechanical and allied pur¬ 
suits, lies adjacent or very close to some great urban center; in it 
the traits which mark off the industrial from the commercial city 
are still further accentuated (see chapter 5). 

3. Between these two varieties is the industrial satellite city, 
which though too far from the metropolis to be called a suburb 
(twenty to fifty miles) yet lies close enough to be within its orbit. 
Its economic life and organization, while showing greater inde¬ 
pendence than that of the suburb, are nevertheless under metro¬ 
politan dominance. This is as true of the cultural as it is of the 
economic life. While less dependent than the suburb, it en¬ 
joys little “ sovereignty ” even over the regions round about it. 
In reality, it is itself part of the hinterland of the great center. 

Why the Industrial City? 

The question will be asked, Why is industry drawn to some 
locations more than to others? No single answer can give an 


59 


The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls 

adequate explanation, for different factors are at work in different 
communities. The cities which are here considered would be in 
existence even if industry were of minor importance, precisely 
because they have hinterlands of their own which supply the 
basis for a considerable commercial development; but, with 
smaller hinterlands than most commercial cities, their popula¬ 
tions would likewise be decidedly diminished if one-half of their 
manufacturing activity were eliminated. The industrial city, as 
above defined, is essentially a small commercial city, plus addi¬ 
tional industrial activity, which has increased its size and al¬ 
tered the nature of its influence. 

Perhaps the most obvious reason for this increment of indus¬ 
trial activity is the presence of natural resources. Scranton owes 
its growth to its rich anthracite coal deposits, some of which are 
within the municipal boundaries. Many of the New England 
textile cities were built near the falls in a river, where water power 
was available to operate the machinery, and were well established 
before the nature and uses of electricity were understood. To 
many persons Niagara Falls spells honeymoon and romance; ac¬ 
tually, it is an important manufacturing city, one-half of whose 
workers are engaged in chemical and allied industries or in other 
types of production made possible by the cheap and unlimited 
supply of electrical power generated near by. Oil, the black liquid 
gold of the south and the west, has converted many a small town 
into a thriving city; Tulsa is an illustration. Port Arthur on the 
Gulf of Mexico affords an excellent terminus for the pipe-lines 
which bring oil from the Texas fields to tidewater; this city has 
built up a mammoth chemical industry on the basis of the re¬ 
fining and processing of oil. 

The second reason for the unusual growth of industries is the 
presence of rich resources, not in the immediate vicinity but in the 
hinterland. Tacoma benefits by the vast timbered regions to the 
east and in the Olympian peninsula. These furnish the basis for 
its lumber and furniture industries and account for much of its 
transportation business. Winston-Salem lies at the heart of a rich 


6o 


City and Church in Transition 

tobacco growing region. The small planters bring in their leaf 
tobacco and here sell it to the buyers of the big corporations. 

A third reason for the development of industries in a particu¬ 
lar locality may be lower labor costs, which in one sense can be 
thought of as a resource of the hinterland. The densely populated 
rural areas of the southeastern states, where living standards are 
low, constitute a “ resource ” for manufacturers of the north who 
have sought to avoid high labor costs and union organization. In¬ 
deed, certain southern cities have advertised that corporations 
could find there not only excellent sites but also low labor costs 
and workers who were unorganized and “ American.” However, 
even before such appeals were made, industrialists had begun to 
move their plants from the northeast to the south. Low labor 
costs, plus the advantage of being near the source of cotton sup¬ 
ply, account for the fact that the number of active spindles in 
the south has increased from thirteen to eighteen million between 
1917 and 1937, while in the New England states the number de¬ 
clined from seventeen to six million. Further, the spindles in 
the cotton states are in operation 40 per cent more hours per 
month than in the north. 

Altoona offers still another reason for its industrial activity. 
This city is on the main line of the Pennsylvania railroad in a val¬ 
ley at the foot of the pass. It is not only a division point on the 
road, but the location for the principal shops of the system. It is a 
railroad town whose prosperity has grown along with the 
“ Pennsy,” as that giant corporation is affectionately called. 
Over seven thousand Altoona men are employed in transportation. 

Proximity to market, which means nearness to the more densely 
settled areas of the nation, also attracts industries. It would be 
poor business to open a plant in the thinly populated mountain 
region of the west to supply the general United States market, 
because of the cost involved in shipping goods to consumers. Con¬ 
sequently most manufacturing activity (except for processing of 
agricultural products such as cotton and tobacco) is concentrated 
in the New England, Middle Atlantic, and East North Central 


The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls 61 

states. Here one-half of the people of the country, living on one- 
seventh of the land, constitute the largest and most accessible 
market for fabricated goods. 

The lower tax rate of Mediopolis is also an attraction for busi¬ 
ness organizations. Some cities are even ready to encourage the 
establishment of new factories by promises of a five-year ex¬ 
emption from local taxes. Wherever possible, manufacturers are 
building plants in cities with good transportation facilities, mod¬ 
erate tax rates, and low rental costs. These factors scale down 
operating expenses for the company and also diminish the cost 
of living for its employees; hence lower wages are paid, consti¬ 
tuting still another saving for the company. Other considerations 
will be of significance for industrialists in different lines of work. 
In automobile manufacturing, for example, a corporation may 
prefer to locate where similar plants are already operating so that 
it may have the advantage of employing trained personnel. Or 
again, in some chemical or rubber industries a plant will be erected 
where an abundance of fresh water is available. The main fac¬ 
tors, however, are the five listed above. 

The presence or absence of such resources as have been named 
will shape the destiny of a growing town. Even an energetic and 
active chamber of commerce cannot attract industries to a site 
where there are no resources to work with. The development of 
a city, like that of a human personality, is influenced by the 
physical equipment it has at the start (its inherent natural ad¬ 
vantages) and by the social environment (the prevailing patterns 
of living and standards of conduct). Social psychologists testify 
that personality patterns are largely set by the time a child reaches 
adolescence; similarly, by the time a city attains a population of 
one hundred thousand its cultural and economic patterns have 
taken a definite form which will influence its entire future. As 
the resources of the city shape the industrial development, so the 
latter in turn determines employment opportunities and many 
aspects of the cultural life of the city. These resulting social 
traits distinguish the industrial city from other urban types. 


62 


City and Church in Transition 


The Residents of the Industrial City 

Such selective factors as those mentioned above attract not only 
industries, but also population groups peculiarly suited to the 
environment, and tend to discourage the advent of others. Al¬ 
toona, which grew lustily during the years of railroad expansion, 
attracted many native Americans as well as a substantial number 
of foreigners migrating to this country at the turn of the century, 
particularly Germans, Irish, and Italians. Its population increase 
of twenty-two thousand in the last decade came chiefly from na¬ 
tive American stock, since immigrants were no longer arriving in 
large numbers; in fact, there has been almost no change since 
1910 in the number of foreign-born. Binghamton, on the other 
hand, has sizable contingents from Czechoslovakia, Italy, Poland, 
and the Irish Free State. Both these cities have demanded skilled 
and semi-skilled workers. In contrast to them is Scranton, which 
has made a bid for great numbers of unskilled laborers. Immi¬ 
grants who could not qualify for specialized jobs on the railroad 
at Altoona were able to obtain employment in the mines of 
Scranton. Indeed in 1930, of Scranton’s 143,000 population 25,000 
were foreign-born (Altoona had 6,000 out of a total of 82,000) and 
62,000 were American-born of foreign or mixed parentage. Sec¬ 
ond and third generation Americans have not been attracted to 
Scranton in large numbers; immigrants have filled the jobs. 

Once it is recognized that the nature of a city’s industrial ac¬ 
tivity is an important factor in determining the type of peo¬ 
ple who settle in the community, the close connection between 
the work pattern and the social and religious life is clear. It is not 
surprising that Scranton with 15,000 Poles, 13,000 Irish, 11,000 
Italians, 10,000 Germans, and 7,000 Lithuanians, has definite ra¬ 
cial communities and numerous societies which keep alive the Old 
World cultures and loyalties; that political antagonisms are in 
evidence and that a variety of distinctive problems confronts the 
schools. Nor is it surprising that Scranton is definitely a Roman 


The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls 63 

Catholic city, that denomination claiming more than half of the 
adult population affiliated with some religious organization. 

Industrial cities are selective in yet another way. They, like 
the growing commercial cities, attract younger men and women 
and present fewer work opportunities for persons over forty-five. 
Binghamton and Schenectady, which specialize in light manufac¬ 
turing, offer more jobs for women than do heavy-industry towns. 
A third of the employed persons in Binghamton and almost two- 
fifths of those in Winston-Salem are women, but in Altoona and 
Scranton, where there are heavy industries, only one-fifth and one- 
fourth of the workers respectively are women. These selectivities 
of nationality, age, and sex are even more in evidence in the in¬ 
dustrial suburb than in the industrial city. 

Work Patterns 

The sample cities included in Table II offer a variety of in¬ 
dustrial patterns. Altoona and Tacoma are transportation towns, 
but the latter boasts in addition a thriving lumber industry. 
Winston-Salem earns its living by the processing of tobacco. 
Binghamton is dependent on shoe manufacturing in general and 
on the Endicott-Johnson Company in particular. A different pat¬ 
tern is presented by Scranton, approximately one-fifth of whose 
employed workers are engaged in mining and a large percentage 
in heavy industry. Heavy and light manufacturing are found in 
about equal proportions in Evansville, no one corporation domi¬ 
nating the industrial life of the city. 

The type of work tends to determine the income and there¬ 
fore the living standards of the people. The contrast in occupa¬ 
tional distribution between commercial and industrial cities can 
best be seen by comparing Tables I and II.* These data not only 
show the dominance of manufacturing and mechanical trades in 
the latter cities but also that they employ fewer professional 

* Cf. also the average occupational distribution for various urban types, Ap¬ 
pendix II. 


TABLE n 

OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION IN INDUSTRIAL CITIES 


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The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls 65 

workers. This is an indication that people are less able to avail 
themselves of professional services, presumably because of lower 
income and living standards. If the effective demand for such 
services were as great in industrial as in commercial cities it is 
proper to assume that the number of trained persons necessary to 
meet the requirements would be approximately equal in both. 
What this means in actual life situations is that parents permit 
their children’s teeth to decay instead of sending them to the 
dentist, that colds are treated at home instead of at the doctor’s 
office. Men and women living in commercial cities have roughly 
25 per cent more schoolteachers, doctors, and lawyers to meet 
their needs. Apparently there is an economic surplus in the 
average commercial city which enables it to maintain a superior 
standard of living. 

Further confirmation of this difference is the fact that there is 
less trade (judging by census employment figures) by 25 per cent 
in industrial than in commercial cities. Although more stores 
per ten thousand inhabitants may exist in an industrial city, 
where this occurs they are smaller, employ fewer persons and, on 
the average, do comparatively less business. This relative sub¬ 
ordinateness of trade, while it may be in part a result of the 
smaller trade area of the industrial city, is another indication of 
the lower per capita income in such centers, and again shows a 
correlation with the number employed in professional service. 
There are also fewer workers in personal service in industrial 
than in commercial cities. It may be argued that Winston-Salem 
has over five thousand (14.6 per cent) so employed in contrast to 
some commercial cities which have considerably fewer. When, 
however, one compares Winston-Salem with a southern com¬ 
mercial city, such as Montgomery, where 28.8 per cent are em¬ 
ployed in personal service, a more accurate picture results. Here 
again the low income level of the Negro marks off southern from 
northern centers. 

The industrial city is more subject to the vagaries of the busi¬ 
ness cycle than is the commercial city, with its broader economic 


66 City and Church in Transition 

base. Shops and stores, which predominate in the latter city, 
manage to struggle along and keep most of their employees on 
the payroll even when the industries shut down. While people 
cannot spend as they once did, there is a minimum below which 
consumption cannot go, even though it be paid for by public 
funds. Also, the public services must be maintained. Those 
industries which produce goods directly for the consumer are 
able to weather a business depression with less risk and hard¬ 
ship than are the so-called heavy industries. Consequently, a 
food processing center will suffer less than a steel or a coal¬ 
mining town. Industrial cities, then, particularly those spe¬ 
cializing in heavy manufacturing, suffer most during a period 
of unemployment. When the smoke goes up the chimney the 
town prospers, for where the mills employ one-third of the work¬ 
ing population, whether that number receives wages or not is a 
matter of prosperity or despair for practically the entire commu¬ 
nity. The grocer, the telephone company, the churches are all 
involved. Unemployment is especially serious in such cities be¬ 
cause the annual (if not the hourly) wage in mills and mines is 
commonly low. As a result, those who lose their jobs have rela¬ 
tively less reserve to cushion them against the hardships of a pro¬ 
longed depression. 


Educational Patterns 

Another sidelight on the industrial city is gained through a 
study of educational standards and school attendance. While in 
the sample commercial cities 68 per cent of the children aged 
sixteen and seventeen were attending school, in the industrial cities 
only 57 per cent attended. There is a proportionately greater 
difference in the school attendance of young people between 
eighteen and twenty, 28 per cent in commercial and 21 in indus¬ 
trial cities. The figures for the latter would be even lower were 
it not for the inclusion of Tacoma, which is somewhat marginal 
to the type and which, like nearly all western communities, has 
advanced educational standards and a high rate of school attend- 


The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls 67 

ance. This comparison between commercial and industrial cities 
holds for the south as well as for the north, although educational 
standards for the total population are lower in the south. 

These contrasts furnish another indication of differences in 
cultural and economic patterns. Where living margins are lower 
fewer children are encouraged to go through high school; it is 
necessary for them to drop out of school and go to work in order 
to supplement the parental income. An additional explanatory 
factor is that in a commercial town there is more social pressure 
on young people to continue their education; it is the expected 
thing. Economic insecurity, more evident in manufacturing than 
in commercial cities, also tends to promote restlessness on the part 
of youth, and dissatisfaction with classroom methods and objec¬ 
tives. One result of the lower school attendance in industrial 
cities is to increase the relative number of job seekers and at the 
same time to decrease the preparation of young people for their 
life work, both of which influences tend to undercut the income 
levels within the community. 

Similar differences between cities of the industrial and com¬ 
mercial types are discernible in all phases of the social organiza¬ 
tion. It is easier for politicians to sway the voters by demagogic 
tactics when the citizens are less well educated or on a lower eco¬ 
nomic level. This is more evident in the industrial suburb, where 
there are higher concentrations of industry and also of the foreign- 
born. One may conclude, therefore, that the work pattern of 
the city affects not only the selection of population but also the 
standards of living, of education, and of religious and political 
organization. 


A Southern City 

Winston-Salem, one of the most interesting of southern cities, 
has an unusual history. The village of Salem was established in 
1766 by a group of Moravians, who made it a religious center. 
Their hopes and ideals were not dissimilar to those of the Pil¬ 
grims. A strong emphasis on religious freedom, on the value of 


68 


City and Church in Transition 

education, on thrifty, courageous living, set a pattern which is 
still to be found in the modern city. On the outskirts of Salem 
a small settlement named Winston was begun in 1850. The two 
communities united in 1913. Their most rapid development has 
come since that time, over one-third of the population (75,272 in 
1930) having been added in the preceding ten years. 

Winston-Salem is situated on the high and beautiful Piedmont 
Plateau, a rich farming and woodland area which lies to the east 
of the Appalachian mountain chain. By far the most valuable 
crop of the region is tobacco, which in Forsyth county (Winston- 
Salem is the county seat) has a cash value about double that of 
all grains combined. While the city does a lucrative business in 
cotton textile and furniture manufacturing, it is primarily de¬ 
pendent on the processing of tobacco for its economic preeminence 
in North Carolina. Indeed, Winston-Salem is the largest producer 
of manufactured tobacco in the world; over twelve thousand per¬ 
sons — one-third of the total number employed in the city — 
work in the tobacco factories. Ninety-five hundred Negroes, or 
more than one-half of all the employed Negroes in the city, are 
engaged in this industry. 

The Negro obviously forms an important part in the economy of 
Winston-Salem, as he does throughout the south. The foreign- 
born, on whose labor northern industrial centers have been so de¬ 
pendent, are found in only negligible numbers. In Winston-Salem 
they constituted less than one per cent of the population in 1930, 
while the Negroes composed 43 per cent; in each case there was 
practically no percentage change from the 1920 figures, in spite 
of the rapid growth of the total population. That the Negro occu¬ 
pies a subordinate status in the city is evident from the nature 
of the work which he does and from differences in pay levels, 
living standards, housing conditions and educational provisions. 
The Negro’s lower economic status also accounts for the relatively 
high percentage of persons employed in domestic service (almost 
80 per cent of whom are colored) and the smaller percentage of 
professional people in the total population. 


The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls 69 

The illiteracy rate for native whites is 2.7 per cent and for 
Negroes 14.5 per cent. The poorer educational opportunities for 
Negroes reflected in these figures bring down the general school 
attendance rate for the youth of the city. For example, 41 per 
cent of the Winston-Salem children sixteen and seventeen years 
of age attend school, as compared with 57 per cent for the nation 
as a whole and 61 per cent for other cities studied in this class. 

Since practically the entire population of Winston-Salem is of 
American stock, white or colored, it is not surprising that Euro¬ 
pean influences are slight, and the cultural life of the city is a 
natural flowering of the standards and aspirations of the old rural 
south. Its beautiful streets and parks, its many homes of distinc¬ 
tion, the intangible quality of quiet and charm which characterizes 
it, evidence this. Economic class differences which are recognized 
as such in the north are less manifest in the south, being largely 
superseded by race differences; these in turn are a significant 
aspect of the economic and cultural organization of the city. 

Here as in other southern cities Protestantism is dominant, for 
Negroes as well as whites hold to the deep-seated traditions of their 
families and communities, in religious and in secular matters alike. 
The Baptist, Methodist, and Moravian churches care for the 
spiritual needs of the majority of the citizens. Many congrega¬ 
tions are housed in beautiful edifices, pointed to with pride by the 
chamber of commerce as well as by the communicants. Religion 
has status in Winston-Salem, and on Sunday morning there is a 
virtual procession to the churches. 

An Industrial City in the Empire State 

Binghamton is an example of an industrial city which is also 
commercially important. The largest city in the southern tier 
of counties in central New York, with Scranton its nearest com¬ 
petitor, Binghamton serves as the shopping center for a popu¬ 
lation of some four hundred thousand persons. Consequently its 
commercial development is greater than that of cities whose 
hinterland is more restricted. 


70 


City and Church in Transition 

The territory at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Che¬ 
nango rivers, in the verdant, rolling country of southern New 
York, has been favorable to human habitation from time im¬ 
memorial. The site was first occupied by an Iroquois village. 
Armed expeditions in 1779 drove the Indians back into the in¬ 
terior and decisively ended their supremacy in this territory. In 
1800, under authorization of William Bingham, owner of the 
“ Bingham Patent,” the laying out of streets for a “ community 
in which trades, industries and arts would flourish ” was begun. 
The further development of the site was a natural and inevitable 
process, considering its location in the logical path of transporta¬ 
tion along the Susquehanna river and its accessibility to the more 
densely populated centers of the new nation. 

The state legislature passed a special act in 1834 to make pos¬ 
sible the incorporation of Binghamton as a village. Between 
1848 and 1869 three railroads, the Erie, the Delaware, Lacka¬ 
wanna and Western, and the Delaware and Hudson, reached Bing¬ 
hamton, connecting it with eastern points. These lines serve the 
city today and, in addition to heavy truck traffic which moves 
in and out, provide distributive facilities for the quantities of 
manufactured products. In 1867 Binghamton was incorporated 
as a city; it has enjoyed a steady growth in the twentieth cen¬ 
tury, from a population of 39,647 in 1900 to an estimated 81,150 
in 1936. 

In the last decade of the nineteenth century an industry was 
established which was to color the entire future development of 
Binghamton: George F. Johnson set himself up in business as a 
shoe manufacturer. Shoes are avowedly the basis of the industrial 
development of this city, and of its thirty-five thousand employed 
persons over one-fifth are engaged in the fabrication of footwear. 
The towns of Johnson City and Endicott, located a few miles to 
the west of Binghamton, were planned and developed for some 
of the nineteen thousand Endicott-Johnson workers. Naturally 
these employees and their families, living in the three adjoining 
cities, with the common interest of their work and under the 


The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls 71 

“ guidance ” of the corporation, tend to establish the living 
standards for the rest of the population. 

The Endicott-Johnson Corporation is a classic example of a 
paternalistic industrial organization. Held firmly in the grasp of 
its founder and his family, it has from the beginning placed great 
emphasis on the welfare of the workers, inviting the discontented 
to “ come in ” and discuss their complaints, building homes for 
workers at or below cost, developing community institutions, 
providing health, educational, and recreational services, and 
“ sharing profits.” In return it expects a contented and “ coopera¬ 
tive ” family of workers who will turn deaf ears to labor union 
organizers. So far it has not been disappointed, and declares 
with pride that union organizers cannot offer the workers any¬ 
thing they do not already possess. The chamber of commerce 
advertises that here is a city where there are no labor disputes 
and no “ radicalism.” The name Johnson is prominent in all civic 
affairs and Johnson money has created many of the permanent 
landmarks of the city. 

Raw materials, steel and coal, are in close proximity; sea and 
lake ports are within easy reach; lumber and agricultural products 
are available. These advantages account for the manufacture 
in Binghamton of a wide variety of small products in addition 
to shoes, and for 41 per cent of the workers who are engaged in 
manufacturing. 

This is a city of small homes, 42 per cent of them being occupied 
by their owners. Employment has been steadier in Binghamton 
during the depression than in many of the state’s other cities of 
comparable or larger size because of the variety of essential con¬ 
sumer goods which it produces. A steady income has promoted 
interest in maintaining and beautifying homes, and the city boasts 
of the absence of slums within its boundaries. 

Binghamton’s population is predominantly white, less than one 
per cent being Negro; this is in marked contrast to Winston-Salem. 
On the other hand, 13.8 per cent of Binghamton’s population is 
of foreign birth, in comparison with 0.6 per cent in Winston-Salem. 


72 


City and Church in Transition 

These foreign-born inhabitants come principally from Ireland 
and England, Italy, Lithuania, and Russia. In an industrial 
city of the northeast the immigrant generally fills the lower paid 
and less desirable jobs. Illiteracy among the foreign-born is 15.8 
per cent, while for the American-born white it is only 0.3 per cent. 
The presence of the foreign-born is reflected in the distribution 
of members of religious bodies. Nearly a third of the population 
thirteen years of age and over is affiliated with the Roman Catholic 
Church, approximately the same as the total “ adult ” member¬ 
ship in all the Protestant churches combined. This is typical of 
the northern industrial city where there is a sizable foreign group, 
and stands in contrast to southern cities. 

By virtue of its location, its resources, its population, and its 
organization, Binghamton serves as an excellent example of the 
American industrial community. It is a thriving, bustling, self- 
conscious city, whose welfare is dependent on the prosperity of 
its hinterland and on the nation-wide market for its products. 
Its industrial and municipal leaders are active in promoting civic 
consciousness and in publicizing the advantages to be found here 
for additional industries and capital investment. It likes the 
title sometimes given it by national producers and distributors 
of “ an ideal American city.” 

The Future of the Industrial City 

The great metropolis may boast of its impressive land values, 
but high real-estate prices increase the cost of industrial produc¬ 
tion as well as the cost of living. Consequently some manufac¬ 
turers are finding it profitable to transfer their production units 
to smaller cities either in the immediate environs of the great 
center (industrial suburbs) or to industrial and commercial cities. 
This is part of the ever present struggle to produce with greater 
economy. Certain living costs, such as rent, are lower in the 
small or medium-sized city and money will therefore go farther, 
so that the industrialist feels justified in paying somewhat lower 
wages than in the metropolis. There is less shifting of population 


73 


The Industrial City: Mediopolis in Overalls 

in Mediopolis, which makes for social stability and a lower labor 
turnover, a goal sought by every industrial management. With 
land less expensive and a marked desire on the part of the workers 
to remain in the community, there will be a higher rate of home 
ownership and a commensurate sense of contentment on the part 
of the worker. 

It is not surprising that the south in particular has benefited 
in the past fifteen years from the shifting of industries away 
from the great centers, for the very influences which cause the 
withdrawal of a plant from a metropolis attract it to southern 
cities where rents and labor costs are low. It may be expected 
that the movement of industry to the south will continue until, 
in the not too distant future, living standards there are raised 
to a level more nearly comparable to that in northern cities. 
Concerns which moved south to avoid the necessity of employing 
union labor are finding that the “ contented ” southern worker 
to whom a three-dollar-a-day wage was good pay is beginning 
to join with his fellows in a trade union. His doing so will mean 
a decided improvement in the living conditions of both Negroes 
and whites. Higher wages are impossible in the south for un¬ 
skilled and skilled white workers unless the benefit is also ex¬ 
tended to the Negro, whose lower living standard constitutes a 
continuing threat to the economic security of the whites; for the 
machine responds as quickly to a black as to a white hand. 

Since shipping costs are high and may be expected to mount, 
many an industrialist is finding it profitable to manufacture his 
goods in four or six centers rather than to operate one mammoth 
establishment at a central point. This fact, plus increased con¬ 
sumption of goods throughout the midwest and south and on 
the west coast, is making it profitable to establish branch fac¬ 
tories as well as branch salesrooms. Such a development brings 
workers into the medium-sized city from the surrounding area. 

The heightened regard which all America has for that which 
is “ urban,” the growing appreciation of urban values, educational 
and cultural as well as economic, causes rural and small-town 


74 


City and Church in Transition 

dwellers to look to the city as an ideal to be admired and a pattern 
to be copied. Though moralists and reformers may bemoan this 
tendency there is small likelihood that it will disappear. In 
view of the decentralization from the large city and the concen¬ 
tration of social forces in the medium-sized city, we may rather 
expect that Mediopolis, especially the commercial and industrial 
types which have hinterlands of their own, will play an increas¬ 
ingly important role in our whole cultural life in the decades which 
lie ahead. 


Illllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllli 



The Industrial Suburb: 

The Workshop of the Nation 

R APID as has been the growth of metropolitan centers in 
the United States since 1920, the expansion of suburban 
. communities clustering about them has been even more 
remarkable. By suburbs is meant those incorporated population 
groups which are adjacent to and therefore under the immediate 
influence of the great city. In this particular study attention is 
confined to such suburban municipalities as have a population of 
50,000 to 150,000, eliminating from consideration those — the 
vast majority — which are smaller in size. Suburban centers have 
been the fastest growing population units in the country, com¬ 
monly increasing two or three times as rapidly as the central 


city. 


Such municipalities are usually more compact than are “ in¬ 
dependent ” cities which have their own hinterland. The com¬ 
mercial city of the plains spreads out, sprawling in all directions. 
In the suburb, whether industrial or residential, the population 
density is much greater because, since land values are higher, 
land utilization must be more complete. Its boundaries do not 
ordinarily include large undeveloped areas; as a rule it is cut 
off on one side by the metropolis and on the remaining sides by 
other towns and villages which are quite self-conscious and not 
interested in losing their identity. Miami and Tacoma, both 
independent cities, include about forty square miles within their 
boundaries, while the suburban cities, Elizabeth, Cambridge, and 


75 




76 City and Church in Transition 

Camden, with populations of approximately the same size, com¬ 
prise fewer than ten square miles each. 

Suburbs are of two contrasting patterns: (i) The industrial type, 
considered in this chapter, is dominated by factories and forges, 
machine shops and mills, and draws to itself from metropolis and 
hinterland those persons who are normally employed by such 
enterprises. Most workers engaged by the industries may be 
classed as skilled or semi-skilled labor. (2) The “high-class” 
residential type is inhabited chiefly by persons who have been 
pushed out from the central city by newcomers. They have moved 
because they wished to avoid the population congestion of the 
city and enjoy the advantages of a more exclusive area for them¬ 
selves and their children, and because they could pay the higher 
living costs involved. Suburbs, like communities within cities, 
tend to be specialized; i. e., an industrial suburb does not draw to 
itself many people who can afford to live in an exclusive area 
and whose primary aim in moving to the suburb is to enjoy the 
status, the comfort and beauty which a more expensive community 
affords. Naturally many suburbs fail to conform perfectly to 
either of these patterns. Some include two more or less clearly 
defined districts, one occupied by industries and their workers 
and the other by better class residences. Malden and Yonkers 
are cases in point. Commonly, however, suburbs are exclusively 
of one type or the other. Even where both patterns are present 
in the same suburb, the two communities will be clearly dis¬ 
tinguishable, with an interstitial or nondescript area interposed 
between them. 


The Traits of the Suburb 

In spite of these differences the industrial has much in common 
with the residential suburb that grows up on some other fringe 
of the metropolis. Each is a partial city and is dependent on 
the larger center for its life as well as for many of its conveniences. 
Each is closely tied in by rapid transportation lines along which 


The Industrial Suburb: Workshop of the Nation 77 

the workers move during the morning and evening rush periods. 
Subways and elevated lines shorten the distance between the sub¬ 
urb and the heart of the metropolis, and commuters or shoppers 
can travel the intervening ten or fifteen miles in twenty minutes 
or half an hour. Cheap rapid transportation, which is the pre¬ 
requisite for the large-scale development of suburban life, may 
reduce the time-cost distance * by half, which has the effect of 
bringing the suburb closer than some of the physically nearer 
points located between the radial lines of transportation. 

The economic and cultural life of the suburb is inextricably tied 
up with that of the big city. Many of the suburbanites (men and 
women from residential and women from industrial suburbs) 
secure employment in the huge stores, banks, and office buildings 
of the metropolis, while thousands of men from the big city enter 
the industrial suburb each morning to work in the factories. 
Minor ailments are treated by the family physician, but for seri¬ 
ous operations the city specialist is consulted. Housewives may 
buy their groceries, their notions and kitchenware in local stores, 
but for dresses and furniture they prefer the magnificent de¬ 
partment stores of the city, where selection is wider and there 
is more romance in shopping. 

Thus the suburb is not economically self-sufficing; neither is it 
politically independent, except in name. When in the spring of 
1936 the Chicago city council voted to go on eastern standard 
time permanently (the equivalent of daylight saving time all 
the year round) the citizens of suburban communities voiced 
vehement opposition to the measure; but in spite of themselves 
they were forced in September to keep their clocks set one hour 
ahead of standard time (until November of the same year when 
the citizens of Chicago themselves repudiated their council’s ac¬ 
tion) because of their complete dependence on the metropolis. 

* It is not the number of miles one travels, but the length of time it takes to 
get from place to place and also the cost involved that determines the direction 
and distance of suburban development. 


78 City and Church in Transition 

Each year the suburban communities perfunctorily vote for sum¬ 
mer daylight saving time; there is nothing else for them to do; 
they are dominated by Chicago. 

The Development of the Industrial Suburb 

Mills and factories are to be found in all sections of the land, 
but the real workshop of the nation, the place in which industrial 
development has reached its acme, is those suburban areas which 
have been pre-empted for industrial activity. The story of our 
economic order, which can be written in terms of the increasing 
division of labor, human and geographical, would be incomplete 
without the important chapter on the rise of the industrial sub¬ 
urb, the locus par excellence for large-scale manufacturing. Its 
development is a phenomenon of the past twenty-five years, the 
result of the outward movement of population and factories from 
the metropolis. To avoid the high land costs and taxes and the 
“ political interference ” found in some large cities many corpora¬ 
tions have relocated their factories in the low-rent areas of sub¬ 
urban towns. The same employees can be retained, taxes are 
lower, and the plant is still near enough to the administrative 
offices, which usually remain in the metropolis, for convenience 
of supervision. 

From what has been said it will be obvious that the industrial 
suburbs of the nation will be found chiefly in the vicinity of 
such cities as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleve¬ 
land, Detroit, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Only in the economic 
life of metropolitan areas will there be a sufficient measure of 
specialization to furnish an adequate basis for the development 
of an industrial suburb the size of Mediopolis. In smaller cities 
industry has not been under economic pressure to move to a sub¬ 
urban location. The taxes it pays and the employment oppor¬ 
tunities it offers are so important to local prosperity that the 
city fathers are sensitive to its needs. While some industries 
may exist adjacent to cities of two hundred thousand population, 
they will not be sufficiently important to furnish the economic 


The Industrial Suburb: Workshop of the Nation 79 

foundation for a suburban center of fifty to a hundred fifty 
thousand. 

Industry is viewed as a great boon within those communities 
which recognize their dependence on it, even by persons engaged 
in commerce and trade, for the city and its economic life still 
have unitary significance for them. But this feeling of identity 
with the whole disappears as the city grows larger and residents, 
immersed as they are in their own commercial and cultural pur¬ 
suits, lose sight of the fundamental basis of urban economic de¬ 
velopment. The smoke and smell of industry, the clatter and 
roar of machinery, and the risk occasioned by shunting of rail¬ 
road cars and by truck traffic, are viewed with disfavor. Zoning 
ordinances are established to relegate heavy industry to the least 
desired areas of the town, which incidentally are generally the 
most suitable for the industry itself. 

The movement of freight trains and trucks through the crowded 
streets of the metropolis or over viaducts constructed at heavy 
expense is not economical of time or money. An industrial sub¬ 
urb offers transportation facilities as ample as those of the neigh¬ 
boring city, and may eliminate some of the complicating factors 
and hazards. Such suburbs develop along the main line of the 
railroads which radiate from the center of the great city. They 
do not arise in the interstitial sections which remain relatively 
unoccupied — sections like the intervals between the fingers when 
the hand is stretched out, the fingers representing the railroad 
lines and the gaps the interstitial areas. 

Some suburban communities have had a long, slow develop¬ 
ment ; Lynn, Elizabeth, and Camden are cases in point. Others 
have appeared suddenly, almost full grown. As late as 1907, when 
the United States Steel Corporation bought up the land to make 
it one of the colossal industrial centers of America, Gary was 
but a stretch of shifting sands and reedy swamps. Dearborn, as 
late as 1920, was a small village of less than twenty-five hundred 
population; within the decade, with the advent of the Ford River 
Rouge* plants, it grew to over fifty thousand. A city which de- 


80 City and Church in Transition 

velops slowly has a sense of historic continuity; traditions have 
been established, there are old-timers who can gossip about land¬ 
marks and events of the past and who give the town a feeling 
of permanency. The “ factory-built ” city such as Gary may be 
well laid out and neatly planned, but it has some of the char¬ 
acteristics of the mail-order suit. It may have individuality, 
but its distinctiveness does not arise out of the collective experi¬ 
ences of the people through the years; neither is the age distribu¬ 
tion of its population normal. Its spectacular rise has attracted 
men and women in the prime of life. There are few elderly 
people in Dearborn or Gary (the percentage of the population 
sixty-five years of age and over in these cities is 1.9 and 1.6 
respectively, whereas for the nation as a whole it is 4.8). In the 
older industrial suburbs there is a more normal population dis¬ 
tribution, the percentage of those over sixty-five years of age 
in Camden, for example, being 4.5, and in Lynn 6.5. Here again 
there are social implications. A long history has a stabilizing 
influence, politically and socially. Where a city is built from the 
ground up in ten years and people are brought in from all sec¬ 
tions of the country, lured by the promise of a job, there are few 
ties which hold the citizens together, the most binding being 
their interest in steady employment. Community consciousness 
will develop, but time is required for its maturation. 

Population Characteristics of Industrial Suburbs 

Factories and mills have found a large proportion of their 
workers among immigrants and the children of immigrants. Little 
opportunity to earn a livelihood in agriculture has been offered 
those who have come to this country since the turn of the century. 
The good, cheap public land was already taken up and most of 
the newcomers could not purchase the equipment needed for 
effective competition in agriculture, let alone buy high priced 
land. At this time however the industries and mines of the coun¬ 
try were expanding rapidly and calling for more and more em¬ 
ployees. A migrant to these shores could secure employment with 


The Industrial Suburb: Workshop of the Nation 81 

such concerns even though he were penniless. Indeed, many 
large corporations encouraged European peasants to come to 
America, promising what to them seemed fabulous wages. When 
the immigrants arrived they moved into communities where jobs 
were available, tending to settle down where others of their own 
nationality had already located, in the “ little Italys ” and “ little 
Polands ” of the great cities, or in mining or factory towns. 
Within these colonies they found some of their Old World cul¬ 
ture, could continue to speak their mother tongue, worship in 
churches served by priests from the old country, and participate 
in their characteristic festivals and holidays. 

Some immigrants went directly to suburban communities, others 
moved there after learning American ways; but most of them 
remained in the familiar colony. Their children, however, who 
had received their education in the public schools of America, had 
opportunity to earn a better living and were not content to 
remain in the racial community, but sought to move out of the 
tenement districts into pleasanter sections of the city or beyond 
it into an industrial suburb. To the Czech residents of Chicago’s 
West Side, Cicero looks almost like heaven; out there one can 
have a home of his own, grass and trees become possibilities, the 
schools are better, and the young people are in less danger of 
contact with criminal gangs. The Dutch housewife, with her 
fondness for order and cleanliness, longs for the day when her 
husband can earn enough so that they can move out of the vicinity 
of the railroad yards and the smoke-laden atmosphere. It is the 
second generation rather than the first which forms the most im¬ 
portant single element in an industrial suburb. The native white 
population of American parentage constitutes less than one-third 
of the total in such industrial suburbs as Cicero, Elizabeth, Gary, 
and Yonkers; it is a characteristic of cities of this type to have 
a population made up chiefly of the foreign-born or their children. 

European immigration was adequate to meet the labor needs 
of developing industry prior to the World War. The cessation 
of this flow of workers in 1914 caused industrialists to turn to 


82 


City and Church in Transition 

the only great supply of low-wage labor available: the rural 
Negroes of the south. During the latter part of the war and 
through the early ’twenties, Negroes arrived in New York, Chi¬ 
cago, and other centers by the tens of thousands, a trainload at 
a time. Many found their way into the industrial suburbs. 
Though practically none went to Cicero, Gary, only twenty miles 
away, numbered eighteen thousand Negroes in its population by 
1930. This spotty distribution is due in part to the employment 
policy of some manufacturing concerns. Toward the end of the 
1920 period of prosperity Mexicans also began to flow into some 
of these cities, but in smaller numbers. 

The resulting racial and nationality composition of the popu¬ 
lation in our industrial suburbs constitutes one of their most in¬ 
teresting characteristics. For example, of Cicero’s 66,602 in¬ 
habitants in 1930, 20,459 bad migrated from Czechoslovakia or 
were the children of such migrants. Poland was represented by 
10,572, Germany by 4,944, and Lithuania by 4,240. In the one 
medium-sized city of Cicero there are more persons who were born 
in Czechoslovakia than are to be found in the following states 
combined: Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, 
Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, 
Utah, and Nevada. It is not surprising that a large measure of 
the Old World Bohemian culture is preserved in Cicero. In com¬ 
parison with these sizable nationality groups, there were in 1930 
only 13,564 persons in Cicero whose parents had been born in 
America. 

In most of our industrial suburbs no one nationality is quite 
so dominant as are the Czechs in Cicero. In Elizabeth, with a 
population of 114,589, there were in 1930, 14,000 Poles, 11,000 
each of Italians and Germans, and over 5,000 each of Irish, Eng¬ 
lish, and Russians, with smaller contingents from Lithuania, 
Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Hungary. In Gary the Poles, 
Czechs, Jugoslavs, Italians, and Greeks predominate, in addition 
to the large number of imported Negroes. Each industrial suburb 


The Industrial Suburb: Workshop of the Nation 83 

has its own characteristic combination, but in every one of them 
the population is overwhelmingly “ working class,” and from the 
standpoint of income and living standards might be described 
as middle or lower middle class. Of the native whites of native- 
born parents who live in such suburbs a disproportionately large 
number are engaged in the professions or serve as shopkeepers. 
“ Old-line ” white Americans tend to have greater economic and 
educational opportunities; consequently more of them enter the 
professions, business, or white-collar occupations, while apparently 
all who can do so avoid mill and factory work, which they feel 
would lower their social standing. The factories are manned 
by the migrants from Europe and their immediate descendants. 

The Work Life 

Not all industrial suburbs are alike. Some have specialized 
in heavy industries — for example, Gary and McKeesport in steel, 
Dearborn in steel and automobiles. In others light manufacturing 
is dominant. The economic life of Cicero swings about the great 
Western Electric plants, while in Lynn the General Electric Com¬ 
pany and a few large shoe factories fill the pay envelopes. These 
differences in the economic base result in many interesting social 
contrasts. For example, where heavy industries are prominent 
very few women will be gainfully employed, for the mills do not 
use female labor. This may be why, in both Dearborn and Gary, 
an unusually high percentage of the women are married; fewer 
than 15 per cent of the gainfully employed are females. Naturally, 
few spinsters are attracted to these towns because of the difficulty 
of securing a livelihood. Gary has one hundred thirty-six men 
for every one hundred women. In cities specializing in light manu¬ 
facturing, however, women find it easier to secure employment. 
In Lynn, over 30 per cent of the total number of workers are 
women, thirty-five hundred being employed in the shoe factories 
alone. This difference in the proportion of employed women will 
have an effect on the pattern of home life in the city. 

Industry in one form or another is dominant in all of these 


84 City and Church in Transition 

cities, as will be seen by referring to Table III. A comparison 
with Tables I and II will show that the industrial suburb devi¬ 
ates from the “ norm ” (the commercial city) in the same respects 
as the industrial city, only to a more marked degree; i. e., from 
the standpoint of economic and social organization the industrial 
city stands midway between the commercial and the industrial 
suburb. For instance, in commercial centers one-fifth of the 
workers are employed in industry; in industrial cities the pro¬ 
portion is one-third, while in the industrial suburb it is one-half. 
Or, to take another occupational division for purposes of com¬ 
parison, one finds that in the commercial cities from 8 to io per 
cent of the workers are engaged in the professions; industrial 
cities have 6 to 8 per cent so employed, and industrial suburbs 
4.5 to 6.5 per cent. 

What has been said in chapter 4 concerning the relationship 
between type of work and income and living standards is par¬ 
ticularly applicable to industrial suburbs. The latter commonly 
have no “ superior ” residential section and no “ exclusive ” shop¬ 
ping district, for these functions are performed by the central 
city or a residential suburb which has in patrician fashion out¬ 
lawed industry from its borders. Even the executives of the 
plants which are located in the industrial suburb choose to live 
in an adjoining and more restricted community and commute 
daily to work. 

Forces are at work in a metropolitan region, as in a great city, 
which are constantly sorting people, who are usually unaware 
of the processes involved, jiggling those who have a comparable 
economic and cultural standard into one area while shifting 
others into a different community. The result of this process is 
to be seen in the surprising homogeneity within industrial and 
also within residential suburbs. East Orange in the main attracts 
people of different social strata than does Paterson; Oak Park 
or Evanston than Cicero or Gary. Hence there is a degree of 
homogeneity in the suburbs not found in the metropolis itself, 
for the latter has within its corporate boundaries a number of 


OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION IN INDUSTRIAL SUBURBS 

By Per Cent 

Occupation Cicero Dearborn Gary Lynn McKeesport Paterson 


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86 


City and Church in Transition 

specialized and contrasting areas and population groups. This 
process of selection also explains the comparatively low economic 
plane of one suburb and the comparatively high plane of another. 
That general living standards are lower in industrial suburbs 
than in the cities discussed in preceding chapters or those which 
follow (except for southern centers) is evidenced by the extremely 
low proportion of persons engaged in the professions. There is 
a smaller amount of trade; fewer families can hire domestic or 
personal help. 

Because of the large number of foreign-born in industrial sub¬ 
urbs, the illiteracy rate is higher than in most northern com¬ 
munities, ranging generally from io to 15 per cent for the foreign- 
born. It is lower in such cities as Dearborn and Lynn, where 
many of the foreign-born come from Canada and consequently 
have had the advantage of fairly adequate schooling. Illiteracy 
for native whites is negligible in all cases. Even though the 
children of the foreign-born have learned to read and write, only 
a small proportion of them continue their studies beyond high 
school. Lynn has the best record among the industrial suburbs 
studied: 29 per cent of its young people eighteen to twenty years 
of age continue their schooling. Most, however, have fewer than 
20 per cent in this category; for example, Camden has n per 
cent, Cicero 13, Dearborn 19, Elizabeth 14, and Paterson 16. In 
commercial cities the number of young people continuing their 
education is about twice as large. Educational standards may be 
taken as an earmark of present interests and ambitions and as 
an earnest of the future earning power and cultural level of a 
population. 


An Old Industrial Suburb 

Alexander Hamilton, always a far-sighted man, realized that 
manufacturing would increase and determined to establish an 
industrial town not too far removed from the city of New York. 
In 1792, impressed by Passaic Falls as a water power site, he 
founded, through his “ Society for Establishment of Useful Manu- 


The Industrial Suburb: Workshop of the Nation 87 

factures,” the city of Paterson, a few miles west of the Hudson 
river. The phenomenal development of nearby New York City 
and its metropolitan area has closely linked in Paterson and other 
suburban cities by economic and physical bonds. The opening of 
the Holland vehicular tunnel, and later of the George Washington 
bridge, brings the metropolis still closer. Fifteen miles, or thirty 
minutes, separate the two, and the area in between is almost 
continuous city. Paterson is as near the business district of 
Manhattan as are many parts of the city of New York itself. 

Paterson is the most important silk processing center in the 
United States. This industry was begun in 1839 when the China 
silk trade was carried on around Cape Horn. Proximity to the 
New York harbor, cheap power, a good water supply, and near¬ 
ness to the market gave Paterson an early advantage. The large 
number of highly trained workers possessed of the requisite tech¬ 
nical skills has been a further important factor in inducing other 
silk industries to locate here. Over six hundred establishments, 
employing twelve thousand workers, are currently engaged in man¬ 
ufacturing silk, while thirteen thousand additional wage earners 
are in the silk dyeing and printing trades. About three-fourths of 
all the silk goods produced in America are dyed and printed in 
or near Paterson. Over two-thirds of the industrially employed 
men and women in this bustling manufacturing suburb earn their 
living through the processing of silk. Many other products are 
also manufactured here: aircraft engines and art glass, boilers 
and bedding. It is indeed an industrial town, almost half of all 
wage earners being engaged in manufacturing or the mechanical 
trades. However, Paterson, like other towns that are chiefly 
dependent on one industry, is tied for weal or woe to that industry. 
Silk goods are essentially a luxury; therefore the depression hit 
Paterson severely. The development of synthetic fabrics, such 
as rayon, has also brought hardship, and is probably one im¬ 
portant reason for the recent slow rate of the city’s growth. 

Paterson, near as it is to the New York harbor, has been readily 
accessible to immigrants coming from Europe, and the growing 


88 


City and Church in Transition 

industries of the city offered employment to thousands who had 
few assets other than their teachability and eagerness to earn a 
living. Of the 138,513 inhabitants, 43,000 were born abroad and 
an additional 59,000 were born in this country of foreign or mixed 
parentage. Only one out of four comes of American stock. Ap¬ 
proximately 30,000 were born in Italy or are of Italian parentage; 
15,000 are British, not counting 6,000 from the Irish Free State; 
11,000 Polish; 8,500 German, and almost as many Russian (chiefly 
Jews). Paterson, which from the first proved attractive to the 
Dutch of Manhattan and their kinsfolk in the Netherlands, still 
has about 7,500 who may be counted as Hollanders. 

Conforming closely to the industrial suburban type, Paterson 
has, in addition to its economic dependence on manufacturing 
and its high ratio of foreign-born persons, other closely allied 
traits. The illiteracy rate, 6.2 per cent, is higher than in other 
mediopolitan types or in the country as a whole (4.3 per cent). 
This percentage will be lowered with the passage of the years, 
for nearly all the children of Paterson remain in school through 
their fifteenth year; but, as in other industrial centers, the ma¬ 
jority drop out of school on the completion of the elementary 
grades or after a year in high school. Such children are not il¬ 
literate, but neither do they have the richer cultural background 
and training which are becoming increasingly common for urban 
children. In Paterson in 1930, 42.5 per cent of those sixteen and 
seventeen years of age, and 16.5 per cent of those eighteen to 
twenty, were attending school, as compared with 57.3 and 21.4 
per cent for the nation and 84.1 and 49.6 per cent for such a 
residential suburb as Cleveland Heights. These contrasts are in¬ 
dicative of differences not only in economic standards (which 
limit ability to utilize the available facilities) and in educational 
aspirations, but also in more subtle areas: conception of the child’s 
role in the family economy, and of the value and function of a 
liberal education. 

Paterson, then, is a stable, well organized suburb with a long 
history, at many points in marked contrast to the lusty young 


The Industrial Suburb: Workshop of the Nation 89 

heavy-industry city of Dearborn. By means of its industrial spe¬ 
cialty, silk, it has earned its living and also renown. A city with 
relatively high factory wages, it has been particularly hit by the 
cheap textiles and silk substitutes manufactured in the south. 
Its future therefore is closely tied up with living standards and 
manufacturing methods in other parts of the United States and 
the world. 

An Automobile City 

Until fifteen years ago Dearborn was a small rural town ad¬ 
joining the expanding young giant, Detroit. The development 
of the Ford River Rouge plant changed the picture and the city 
of Dearborn sprang into being almost overnight. It was incor¬ 
porated in 1927, and two years later was joined by the town of 
Fordson. It had a population of fifty thousand in 1930, which by 
1936 had increased to an estimated eighty-five thousand. 

Dearborn is essentially a one-industry city and Henry Ford is 
its godfather. The River Rouge plant which supplies work for 
about one-half of all the employed persons in the city covers over 
one thousand acres. Here the crude ore is received from the 
Great Lakes freighters and in short order emerges at the far end 
of the assembly line as a finished car. So carefully timed and so 
continuous is the process that ore which arrives at eight o’clock 
on Monday morning can emerge as part of a finished car by 
Tuesday noon. The size of this mammoth enterprise can be 
judged from the fact that “ 5,000 men are engaged solely in keep¬ 
ing the plant clean. ... In a month 16,000 gallons of paint are 
applied to walls and machinery — 5,000 mops and 3,000 brooms 
are worn out — 86 tons of soap are used.” 

Naturally the city which shelters such a vast establishment 
is greatly influenced by it and cannot be understood apart from 
it. However, the plant-city combination is not independent of 
its great neighbor, Detroit. Before each change of shifts in the 
Ford plant thousands begin to arrive from nearby Detroit by 
automobile and various types of public transportation to take 


go 


City and Church in Transition 

the place of those who are punching their time-cards at the close 
of their work day. The city of Dearborn does not have enough 
employable persons to meet the needs of the plant, which in 1937 
had 89,300 on its pay rolls. 

Dearborn is dependent on Detroit in many other ways. Young 
people attend Detroit’s universities and professional schools. 
Young and old drive in for much of their social and recreational 
life. The women of Dearborn do a considerable amount of shop¬ 
ping for major items in the large Detroit department stores. The 
services of the medical, legal, and other specialists of Detroit 
are frequently sought by Dearbornites; many of them enjoy 
worshiping in the magnificent churches of the metropolis. To be 
sure, Dearborn does have good stores, theaters, hospitals, and 
churches of its own, but the metropolis draws like a lodestone. 
It has prestige; people enjoy going there. Dearborn is definitely 
an industrial suburb which can perform the one specialized func¬ 
tion of manufacturing millions of cars a year only because it is 
so near Detroit that the latter can supplement it at many 
points. 

Dearborn is young in years, in the nature of its activity, and 
in population. There are fewer elderly people sixty-five years of 
age and over (1.9 per cent of the total population) than in cities 
of other types (5.1 per cent for the total urban population, 5.4 
for the nation). It is a man’s town, too, with one hundred thirty- 
two men to every one hundred women. Considering that it is an 
industrial suburb it contains surprisingly few foreigners. Five 
thousand of its people were born in Canada or of Canadian par¬ 
ents and an equal number come from Poland and Germany; but 
other nations have few representatives. Most of the workers have 
come from rural America. They have tinkered with Ford cars 
and “ made ’em run ”; now they have come to “ make ’em.” Men 
— young men — come here to earn enough money to buy a home, 
hoping to bring the family later. A large number succeed; many 
do not, and the turnover of transients is therefore always large. 


The Industrial Suburb: Workshop of the Nation 91 

Those who rise to executive or office positions move to a “ high- 
class ” area. Dearborn is a young man’s town. 

The people of Dearborn are a step above those of Cicero in 
educational achievement; most of their children complete the 
high school course. In Cicero the majority do not get that far. 
Dearbornites are proud of their city, its rapid development and 
promise for the future. This is a dynamic and activist city (in 
times of prosperity), the sort of place which Europeans would call 
typically American. 

The Future of the Industrial Suburb 

The advantages of concentration and large-scale production 
offered by the industrial suburb will no doubt for a good many 
years to come make it the most efficient and profitable setting for 
heavy industry. Small-scale and light manufacturing will per¬ 
haps find their future development linked with independent in¬ 
dustrial cities, but those processes which depend on the availa¬ 
bility of plentiful and swift transportation facilities, space for 
extensive buildings, heavy machinery, cranes and loading piers, 
and an inexhaustible labor supply will probably cling to the out¬ 
skirts of the teeming centers of population rather than subsist in 
the metropolis or move to the industrial city. 

Economists, both liberal and conservative, are prone to assert 
that periods of prosperity and depression will continue to succeed 
each other under our present system of economic organization. 
An upturn in the capital goods industries predicts a “ boom ” of 
activity in the heavy manufacturing plants of the suburbs; the 
flames from the furnaces cast a lurid light in the sky, and shifts 
of workers replace each other with assuring regularity. On the 
other hand, a prolonged period of depression throws an industrial 
suburb entirely off its feet. In the low point of the recent de¬ 
pression, relief was the only source of income for an estimated 
40 per cent of the residents in such a city as Gary. Nevertheless, 
whatever may be the influence of governmental efforts to regulate 


92 


City and Church in Transition 

the cyclic changes in economic production and of governmental 
supervision of labor’s relation to management, it can be predicted 
with relative safety that heavy industry will continue to be con¬ 
centrated in specialized areas near great cities. Efficient produc¬ 
tion demands such concentration under any economic system. 

The natural result will be the continued growth of population 
in industrial suburbs; however, the social characteristics will 
change. At present the laborious unskilled and semi-skilled work 
required in heavy industry is being performed by those with an 
immigrant background or by native Americans who have not been 
able to rise to a white-collar position. As a result of governmental 
efforts to restrict immigration, spurred on by the official attitude of 
organized workers toward “ foreign labor competition,” the immi¬ 
grant accessions to our population have become negligible. This 
means that future recruits for heavy industry in our suburbs will 
of necessity be drawn from an American source. More Negroes 
may be attracted from the south, and even southern whites, sepa¬ 
rated from their farm tenantry by the mechanical cotton picker, 
may drift north to find work. The Mexican will not be a major 
figure in the industrial picture, since the climate of the north, 
both literally and figuratively, is uncongenial to him; also, and 
perhaps more important, because of the agitation on the part of 
labor leaders for his exclusion. 

Industrial suburbs may eventually absorb much of the surplus 
rural population of the north and west, and these cities will 
gradually lose their distinctive racial features. The tendency of 
the foreign-born or their children to Americanize their names by 
dropping off such suffixes as -ski, -wicz, and -stein symbolizes the 
process by which, with the passage of the years, the whole matter 
of nationality allegiance recedes from consciousness, and these 
people become assimilated to American life and cultural standards. 
When the American farmer’s son does not feel that he is entering 
a “ foreign ” community rural young people will flock in larger 
numbers to man the heavy industries. With technological de¬ 
velopment eliminating much of the back breaking drudgery which 


The Industrial Suburb: Workshop of the Nation 93 

has been associated with heavy industry, wages and standards 
will rise, perhaps through the pressure of union organization. As 
these changes take place, it is probable that the general economic 
and cultural tone of industrial suburbs will improve, rising to a 
level comparable to that of the independent industrial or com¬ 
mercial city. 



The Residential Suburb: 
The Parlor of the Metropolis 


R ESIDENTIAL like industrial suburbs are in reality only 
segments of a city, performing one or two specialized 
^ functions for the population of the metropolitan area. 
They are essentially overgrown communities.* The typical resi¬ 
dential suburb was originally a small village, perhaps ten or 
twelve miles from a nearby city, along the river bank or lake 
shore, on higher, less swampy ground than the surrounding area. 
In those days the village was a two-hour ride from the city. As 
the latter grew, its boundaries were pushed outward in all possible 
directions. Yet they did not move rapidly enough to satisfy a 
few persons who sought to get away from the noise and confusion. 
The village which, linked to the city by rail transportation, no 
longer seemed so far out in the country, attracted more and more 
commuting residents, until it grew to be a suburban town. By 
the time the central city had achieved the status of a metropolis 
the village had become a city in its own right; it and the larger 
neighbor had grown toward each other until now their boundaries 
touched, and only the taxpayers could tell where the dividing line 
lay. 

A residential suburb never springs suddenly into being, as is 
the case with some industrial suburbs, for there is no one strong 
organizing agency which can, as if by fiat, create residential cities. 
Instead they develop more or less deliberately over a long period 
* See footnote on p. 6. 

94 



The Residential Suburb: Parlor of the Metropolis 95 

of time, and therefore have a type of stability and status which 
many an industrial suburb lacks. 

The Residents of the Suburb 

The chief source for suburban population growth is the me¬ 
tropolis itself. Relatively few come directly to a suburb from 
the hinterland. City dwellers become tired of living in the midst 
of noise, traffic and dirt. The suburb is more open; houses, and 
for that matter apartments, are not crowded into so small a space. 
There are more trees, grass plots are larger. It is possible to 
own a pleasant home and have a garden. Parents are convinced 
that their children will have better opportunities in the suburb, 
that they can play with more suitable companions and attend a 
superior school. Also influencing the decision of the city dweller 
to move to the suburb is the desire, more or less conscious, to 
improve his social standing. He knows that the people living 
in Cleveland Heights or Lakewood “ rate ” a little bit higher 
socially and enjoy a pleasanter life than do most of those living 
in the city of Cleveland itself. 

In the main, such a suburb attracts those who have an income 
above the average or who wish to pretend that they have. How¬ 
ever, there is another group of people who move into suburbs, 
not for the sake of status for themselves but because of the many 
jobs created by the higher living standards and by the desire 
of the majority in the suburb to maintain or acquire social pres¬ 
tige. Affluent persons who can afford large houses require one 
or more servants to “ tend ” the house and prepare the meals, 
perhaps a nursemaid to care for the children, and a gardener- 
chauffeur for odd jobs. Others who have less money but long to 
be thought well of socially tend to ape the pattern of conspicuous 
consumption set by the acknowledged social leaders. They too 
would like to have at least one maid. If they cannot afford one 
full time, they contrive to manage with part-time service. Many 
persons therefore are able to gain employment in personal or 
domestic service in the suburbs. The exigencies of the situation 


96 City and Church in Transition 

consequently cause the development within the residential sub¬ 
urb of a section or local community where dwell the household 
employees of the people in the “ better districts.” Some domestic 
servants travel from the city to the suburb each morning, return¬ 
ing home at night, but most of them prefer to locate near the 
area where they work. Since they can neither buy nor rent a 
home in the superior residential sections of the city, where land 
values are high, they usually develop a community of their own 
in another portion of the city, perhaps “ west of the tracks ” or 
“ at the foot of the hill.” This community owes its existence 
and the degree of prosperity it possesses to the presence of the 
wealthier communities within the same city. Sociologists char¬ 
acterize the relationship which exists between such a community 
and its wealthier neighbor as symbiotic; i. e., the differences be¬ 
tween them are such that each performs essential services for 
the other. 

Some residential suburbs develop around a university and as 
a result attract to themselves many who would not ordinarily 
be drawn to such specialized cities. Cambridge has grown up 
about Harvard University, as has Evanston about Northwestern. 
Each school has given a tone to the entire city and is one of 
the reasons for its growth as a residential community. To such 
schools come thousands of students who not only attend classes 
but live in the dormitories and boardinghouses and furnish patron¬ 
age for the restaurants, specialty shops, and beauty salons as well. 

Like the great city the residential suburb is constantly under¬ 
going change. As population pressure increases, land values rise 
and districts which were zoned for private residences are opened 
to apartment houses. This move is opposed by the old-timers 
who enjoyed the aloofness of the town and are loath to see the 
entrance of new, disturbing urban influences. With the erection 
of apartment houses, many white-collar workers who formerly 
could not afford to live in the suburb make it their home. This 
change is most noticeable in the section of the suburb which ad¬ 
joins the major city. As these new population groups move in, 


The Residential Suburb: Parlor of the Metropolis 97 

many of the earlier residents decide that the town is getting too 
crowded and migrate farther out from the city into smaller com¬ 
munities. Thus finally the suburb loses much of its exclusiveness 
and wealth as it is engulfed by the city, while out beyond new 
and more exclusive suburbs are being born. 

“ To the City and Return ” 

Just as the industrial suburb may be likened to the workshop 
of the metropolitan district, so the residential suburb may aptly 
be called the big city’s parlor or perhaps its master bedroom. 
The intimate relationship which exists between the suburb and 
the city may be perceived by watching the arrivals and departures 
at a suburban station on the rapid transit line. If one settles 
himself on a hard wooden bench in an Evanston “ elevated ” sta¬ 
tion at six o’clock in the morning, there is little to interfere with 
his solitude and repose for about an hour. Only a few travelers 
are moving in either direction and one- or two-car trains are ade¬ 
quate to carry them. The night station agent is relieved by the 
woman on the first day shift; the clerk in charge of the newsstand 
has everything in order, with tall stacks of morning newspapers 
piled on the counter ready for the rush period. As seven o’clock 
approaches, the observer notices an increase in traffic; an ex¬ 
change of workers is taking place. Some who live in Chicago and 
are employed in or about the suburban homes are arriving. 
Others, from “ west of the tracks,” are leaving for work in the 
city as porters, janitors, streetcar conductors, etc. 

By seven-thirty o’clock traffic is heavier. Clerks in local stores, 
filling station attendants, employees of a small cosmetic plant 
are arriving. The agent is selling more tickets for the city. A 
little before eight university students come rushing from the 
trains, hurrying for their first class. The peak of cityward traffic 
comes between eight and nine o’clock in the morning, when a 
steady stream of young and middle-aged men and women moves 
up past the newsstand and the ticket office to the “ L ” platform. 
Here one eight-car train follows another in rapid succession as 


98 City and Church in Transition 

the Evanston contingent of white-collar workers, salespeople, 
stenographers and insurance agents hurry to catch the train which 
will get them to the job in time for the nine or nine-thirty 
opening. 

By nine o’clock arrivals have dropped to a mere trickle and 
a change is noticeable in the type of person going downtown. 
Older men, executives, heads of departments, professional persons 
are now on their way. Mingled with them are many women 
shoppers looking for an early bargain. From ten o’clock on it 
is chiefly women who are city-bound. About noon some of the 
early shoppers are returning, but there is not much heavy traffic 
until students leave for home at various times during the after¬ 
noon when classes are out. By four o’clock the trains are again 
loaded, bringing homeward weary, package-laden shoppers. Be¬ 
fore long the gray-haired, well groomed businessmen also make 
their appearance. (A large proportion of these men go and come 
by the steam train which offers faster service with fewer stops; 
the fact that it is somewhat more expensive is inconsequential. 
In some cases a chauffeur is waiting at the station with the family 
car to whisk the executive away with a minimum of delay and 
discomfort over the last few blocks to his home.) 

The peak of returning traffic comes from four-thirty to six- 
thirty o’clock. An hour later another stream of people is city¬ 
ward bound, eagerly anticipating an evening of relaxation and 
recreation in the theaters of Chicago. Mingled with them is the 
household help, free to leave after the dinner dishes are washed. 
Again, late in the evening, the trains bring the playgoers home. 

If one were to watch the main avenues of automobile trans¬ 
portation through the same period he would find rather similar 
movements. However, there is little cityward traffic until those 
who occupy the more important positions begin to drive in, or 
perhaps have their chauffeurs do the driving while they, ensconced 
in the back seat, read the morning paper. In the evening, after 
the theaters are filled, another but smaller contingent leaves the 
suburb, going to Chicago cabarets and night clubs; these persons 


The Residential Suburb: Parlor of the Metropolis 99 

drive to town, as one does not feel particularly comfortable in 
an elevated train if he is wearing evening dress. This final dele¬ 
gation of suburbanites who go to the city to utilize certain of its 
specialized facilities comes wearily homeward anywhere between 
midnight and dawn, when the round of interchange between city 
and suburb is about to begin once more. 

Social Traits 

The residential suburb has its own distinctive social charac¬ 
teristics. In the average city one would expect to find an even 
balance between the sexes. In this type of suburb, however, there 
is definitely a feminine dominance, the census reporting one hun¬ 
dred females to every eighty or ninety males; in the industrial 
suburb the reverse is generally the case. This excess of women 
occurs chiefly in the twenty to thirty-five year age group and con¬ 
sists in the main of spinsters. Several factors account for this 
large number of women. Many are attracted by the opportunities 
for employment in domestic service. Others reside in such a 
suburb because it is an attractive and also a reputable place to 
live; it is easier for a woman to obtain a white-collar job in the 
city if her home address is in this type of community. Widows 
and other women with independent income find here many in¬ 
teresting diversions with which to occupy their time: club meet¬ 
ings, concerts, church affairs, teas, and lectures. 

In residential suburbs there are fewer single males and more 
single females than in the average urban community. A pro¬ 
portionately larger number of the men are married and main¬ 
tain homes of their own than in the country as a whole or in 
other types of cities. These suburbs also are more congenial for 
elderly people; in Pasadena 12 per cent of the population is sixty- 
five years of age or over; the average for urban America is 
5 per cent. 

The residential suburb is characteristically an “ American ” 
city, for ordinarily at least three-fourths of the total population 
will have been born in the United States of white parents, from 


100 


City and Church in Transition 

15 to 25 per cent of the population being foreign-born or Negro. 
Many of this latter group are employed in the homes of the 
former. Most of the foreign-born come from England, Canada, 
the Scandinavian countries, and Germany. The Italians comprise 
an important segment of the foreign-born population in some of 
the eastern suburbs such as Newton, Mount Vernon, and East 
Orange. 

In harmony with their other social traits, the illiteracy rate of 
these suburbs is quite low and, conversely, school attendance is 
unusually high. A comparison of proximate residential and in¬ 
dustrial suburbs illustrates this point. East Orange has 30 per 
cent of its eighteen- to twenty-year-olds in school, while nearby 
Elizabeth has 14 per cent; Evanston has 46, while Cicero has 
13 per cent. These figures would seem to indicate that in the 
residential suburb the average family income affords a wider 
margin above the bare necessities of life — affords greater eco¬ 
nomic security, opportunity for a continued education and a 
more generous consumption of the luxury goods and services of 
life. That this is so is clearly indicated by Table IV, which com¬ 
pares the number of persons in certain of the professions and 
also the number of domestic servants in Cicero and Evanston, 
two cities with populations of practically the same size and both 
suburban to Chicago. 


TABLE IV 


Members of 
Occupations 

Cicero 

Evanston 

Dentists 

44 

132 

Physicians & Surgeons 

50 

194 

Trained Nurses 

29 

447 

Teachers 

188 

854 

Servants 

318 

3426 


The difference in number of teachers in the two municipalities 
can be accounted for in part by the presence in Evanston of 





The Residential Suburb: Parlor of the Metropolis ioi 

Northwestern University. Cicero has no comparable institution; 
nor is there much likelihood of a university’s locating in an in¬ 
dustrial suburb where there are far fewer young people who 
complete their high school training. Some of the dentists and 
doctors who live in Evanston and therefore are included in the 
above table have their offices in Chicago, but this circumstance 
can account for only a part of the surplus. Clearly, the people 
in Evanston can, on the average, spend more money for the care 
of their health as well as for the training of their minds. The 
fact that there are ten times as many servants in Evanston as 
in Cicero is a further indication that there are more families 
in the former suburb who can afford to hire domestic assistance. 
These differences which distinguish the residential from the in¬ 
dustrial suburb will be still further confirmed by a comparison 
of Table V, presenting the occupational distribution in certain 
residential suburbs, with the data in Table III (or cf. Appendix II). 

In contrast to the industrial suburb, which shows greater spe¬ 
cialization in the manufacturing and mechanical trades than any 
other type of city, the residential suburb, standing at the opposite 
extreme, has a minimum of such activities. In the industrial 
suburb about one-half of the workers are engaged in industry; 
only one-sixth are so employed in the residential suburb. On 
the other hand, there are roughly twice as many employed in 
the various commercial activities, and two to three times as many 
in professional service in the latter as in the former. When a 
city can afford a large measure of professional service it may 
also be expected to employ a correspondingly greater number in 
domestic and personal work. Both of these factors indicate the 
presence of wealth and “ culture.” Finally, because of the status 
advantages offered by the residential suburb to aspiring men and 
women engaged in white-collar occupations, it is not surprising 
that cities of this type will show a relatively high percentage 
of clerical workers. 


OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION IN RESIDENTIAL SUBURBS 


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The Residential Suburb: Parlor of the Metropolis 103 
A University Suburb 

Evanston owes its founding and development to the determina¬ 
tion of a few Chicago men and women of the mid-nineteenth 
century to establish institutions of higher learning on the shores 
of Lake Michigan. There were few settlers in the territory be¬ 
fore 1850, and Indian trails and landmarks were still prominent 
when in 1854 the first of these schools, Garrett Biblical Institute, 
a Methodist theological seminary, opened its doors. Shortly 
afterward Northwestern University and the Northwestern Female 
College started classes. It was practically the same group of 
people who founded the town and established these three insti¬ 
tutions. The first religious services in the settlement were con¬ 
ducted by itinerant Methodist preachers in a small log school- 
house. So it was that people of the Methodist persuasion were 
prominent in the laying out of the village, in the organization of 
the political and educational activities of the growing town, and 
in setting the cultural and social pattern. 

In 1855 the small settlement, which had been known as Ridge- 
ville, changed its name to Evanston in honor of one of the uni¬ 
versity’s founders. The purchase of ground and the laying out of 
residence lots and streets by the university trustees stimulated 
interest in the community, and the opening of the Chicago and 
Northwestern railroad between Chicago and Waukegan, farther 
north, in that same year, resulted in a boom in the new territory. 
Drainage ditches were dug and on the newly acquired dry land 
east-west streets were constructed and homes established. Eight 
years later, with a population of twelve hundred, Evanston was 
formally incorporated as a village. As late as the turn of the 
century there stretched between Evanston and Chicago an ex¬ 
panse of prairie, a favorite retreat for the townspeople who liked 
to drive out into “ the country ” for a picnic. This open country 
has long since disappeared as residence and business areas of 
Chicago and Evanston have expanded. 

There are several distinct high class residential communities 


104 City and Church in Transition 

within the borders of Evanston. The oldest straddles the ridge; 
another adjoins the university and stretches south along the lake 
shore; the third and newest extends westward at the north of the 
city. In the lower land west of the ridge and of Evanston’s 
main business district is to be found the Negro area. (Negroes 
formed eight per cent of the population in 1930). Farther south 
is a humble section occupied by a heterogeneous population, in¬ 
cluding many Poles. The latter groups are found “ west of the 
tracks ” (i. e., the elevated and railroad lines from Chicago); 
many of these people are employed in the wealthier homes to 
the east and north. 

Evanstonians often refer to their city as the “ Athens of the 
West.” While a certain degree of smug complacency is evident 
in their attitude, it cannot be denied that the intellectual status 
of the population is comparatively high. The presence of nearly 
nine hundred teachers in schools and colleges, and of thousands 
of students presumably interested in the pursuit of knowledge, 
sets the tone for much of the city and attracts to it other thou¬ 
sands who find such surroundings agreeable. Several preparatory 
and professional schools are located here, and the city is fre¬ 
quently chosen for conferences and institutes of various kinds. 
Clubs and societies are embarrassed by a surplus rather than a 
paucity of leadership, and residents are distressed at their in¬ 
ability, due to lack of time, to take advantage of the countless 
opportunities to be enlightened, instructed, and entertained. 

Old-timers have long bemoaned the fact that “ Evanston is 
not what it used to be.” However, until twenty years ago it 
had remained a quiet, satisfied, and reserved suburban community. 
Its people delighted in the quiet air of repose which characterized 
the streets; on Sunday no motion picture house could operate. 
In the ’twenties, however, even the most optimistic of oldsters 
could not fail to see that Evanston was changing. Increased 
prosperity allowed many white-collar workers to move in from 
Chicago in spite of the added rent and transportation costs. De¬ 
mand for living quarters stimulated the erection of apartment 


The Residential Suburb: Parlor of the Metropolis 105 

houses, at first chiefly in the south end of town but soon near 
the rapid transit stations throughout the length of the city. 
Evanston merchants, intoxicated by the increase in population 
and eager to expand the business centers, promoted “ dollar days ” 
and advertised widely, inviting patronage from all the surround¬ 
ing communities. After an extended battle, the law for closing 
theaters on Sunday was repealed and efforts were made to develop 
a bright light area around the old and staid Fountain Square. 

Unofficial conversations about the possibility of Chicago’s an¬ 
nexing Evanston have aroused furious opposition and resentment 
on the part of the older residents, who vow they will never con¬ 
sent to the contamination of their city’s political and cultural 
“ purity ” by the touch of Chicago’s notoriously corrupt organiza¬ 
tion. An objective observer, however, can see signs that Evanston 
is changing from within; its politicians are becoming more pro¬ 
fessionalized, its population less “ select,” and its land more 
crowded. Although there is still a small-town beauty and se¬ 
renity in its tree-lined streets there is evidence that the urban 
influence of Chicago is engulfing Evanston from the south. It 
is only a matter of time until Evanston, even though it may main¬ 
tain its political independence, will be as much a part of the 
great metropolis as the Hyde Park community, with its University 
of Chicago, which was annexed years ago. 

A Pacific Coast Suburb 

For two centuries the atmosphere of the entire southwest has 
been distinctly Spanish in flavor. Explorers and padres moving 
north from Mexico to investigate the resources of the country 
and to evangelize the Indians represented the Castilian govern¬ 
ment and the Spanish Catholic Church. The skillful technique 
of the priests, plus the docility of the native Indians, permitted 
the peaceable establishment of a series of missions along El 
Camino Real, which traversed half the length of California. 
From then on until the days of the gold rush the Spanish in¬ 
fluence was dominant. The brown hills and fertile valleys were 


106 City and Church in Transition 

the scene of drowsy hacienda life, the comparatively small Mexi¬ 
can and Spanish population maintaining order of a sort among 
the Indians. 

The present site of Pasadena was occupied by an Indian vil¬ 
lage when in 1770 Don Casper de Portola and his band of ex¬ 
plorers passed north. Impressed by the beauty of the country¬ 
side, they honored the village with the name of San Pasqual, by 
which it was known for over a century. In 1884 a group of 
Americans, among the thousands pouring into the state, formed 
a settlement in the same valley, calling it the “ Indiana Colony.” 
A year later the name Pasadena, meaning “ Crown of the Valley,” 
was adopted. A village of 391 persons in 1880, it grew rapidly to 
9,117 in 1900, to 45,354 in 1920, and now, according to the 1937 
estimate, boasts a population of 85,000. This amazing expansion 
has been typical of the entire Los Angeles area during the past 
decades. 

Los Angeles, the sprawling metropolis which dominates the 
southern California region, is encircled with suburban communi¬ 
ties. Among them Pasadena has traditionally held the reputation 
of being the most exclusive, wealthy and beautiful. Twenty 
years ago the ride from downtown Pasadena to the business dis¬ 
trict of Los Angeles by interurban electric train carried one 
through much open country; now, such has been the population 
growth, the two municipalities have a segment of boundary in 
common, and the entire area has undergone urban development. 
The current use of the motor car for commuting long distances 
and the consequent development of excellent highways have 
brought Pasadena even closer to the life of the metropolis. 

Pasadena, lying as it does at the foot of a mountain range and 
within a few miles of the ocean, has exploited to the full its scenic 
and climatic advantages. It is blessed, and at the same time handi¬ 
capped, by a constant influx of easterners who, in holiday mood, 
enjoy the advantages of the city without sharing in its responsi¬ 
bilities. In this regard Pasadena has something in common with 
resort cities. With a large transient element in the population, 


The Residential Suburb: Parlor of the Metropolis 107 

such municipalities fail to maintain the stability which accom¬ 
panies a slower growth. Pasadena has resisted this uncontrolled 
development more successfully than has her larger neighbor. 

Civic pride has been fostered in Pasadena for nearly fifty years 
by the annual “ Tournament of Roses ” staged on New Year’s 
day as an objective demonstration to easterners that it is always 
springtime in California. The mile-long parade of floats, adorned 
with vast quantities of fresh flowers, attracts visitors by the 
hundred thousand to the streets of Pasadena. Superb gardens and 
parks, avenues of handsome homes with their landscaped grounds, 
establish its claim to be one of America’s most beautiful cities. 
Its civic enterprises evidence the cultural interests and intellectual 
caliber of many of the past and present residents. 

The record of Pasadena for school attendance is unusual, even 
for a residential suburb. Of young people sixteen and seventeen 
years of age, 91.5 per cent attend school, while 48.6 per cent 
of those who are eighteen to twenty are continuing their educa¬ 
tion. The contrast with industrial suburbs in this respect is there¬ 
fore impressive. School attendance is the accepted pattern for 
young people in residential suburbs, and the opportunities for 
cultural and social as well as physical development are rich and 
varied. Only one in a thousand of the native whites is classed 
as illiterate. 

One of the most noticeable characteristics of the city is that 
12 per cent of the residents are sixty-five years of age or over. 
Pasadena has long been a favored retirement spot for wealthy 
oldsters. On the other hand there are fewer young people, only 
18 per cent being below fifteen years of age (29 per cent for 
the United States). There are fewer persons in the first ten 
years of life than in any other ten-year period up to sixty-five; 
there are fewer children under ten than men and women between 
fifty-five and sixty-four years of age, a very unusual age distribu¬ 
tion. Obviously, Pasadena would have a declining population 
were it not for the constant influx of adults. 

Like other residential suburbs Pasadena is a woman’s town 


108 City and Church in Transition 

(a hundred females to eighty males), partly because it is an ideal 
resort for women of independent income, partly because of the 
heavy demand for domestic servants. Native white citizens com¬ 
prize 78 per cent of the population; foreign-born white a mere 
13, and Negroes 4 per cent, with Mexicans ranking only slightly 
below the Negro. Most of the foreign-born have a northern 
European background and come chiefly from England, Canada, 
the Scandinavian countries, and Germany. 

Industry has small place in this city, only 12 per cent of the 
working population being engaged in manufacturing and mechani¬ 
cal trades, and these chiefly in small industries such as pottery 
works, furniture and art crafts, and printing establishments. 
Trade occupies a fifth of the workers and exclusive shops enjoy 
a lucrative business with a wealthy clientele. Fifteen per cent 
of the gainfully employed are in-professional service. Such a 
population as Pasadena’s demands a large number of doctors, 
nurses, teachers, and preachers. The character of the town is 
particularly well revealed by the fact that one-fifth of the workers 
are in domestic and personal service, nearly half of all employed 
women being so classified. All aspects of the occupational as well 
as of other data mark off Pasadena as a typical example of the 
superior residential suburb. 

The Future of the Residential Suburb 

Wherever cities have existed, small suburban communities 
have flourished around the periphery. As the city grows, more 
and more prestige is attached to living in the outskirts. It is 
only within the past fifty years, however, that large residential 
suburbs the size of Mediopolis have come into existence. As is 
the case with all forms of social differentiation, this type of city 
does not arise until the metropolis grows so large that such 
specialized communities can be maintained. These suburbs, which 
give social prestige and provide opportunity for more enjoyable 
living than is to be found in the adjacent city, develop along with 
the latter and are dependent on it for their continued existence. 


The Residential Suburb: Parlor of the Metropolis 109 

The future of the residential suburb, then, is inextricably bound 
up with that of the metropolis itself. The continued growth of 
the central city, with the resultant outward movement of popula¬ 
tion from its more congested areas, furnishes a constant source 
for suburban growth, but will at the same time gradually alter 
the function of the suburb. As the latter expands in population 
it begins to lose its exclusiveness, the wealthier people move 
onward and are followed by some of the persons dependent on 
them for jobs. As they leave for smaller and more restricted 
communities, white-collar workers come in, the number of apart¬ 
ment houses increases and the number of servants declines. It 
is this change from private residence to apartment house which 
constitutes one of the chief problems for the church in the resi¬ 
dential suburb. 

With its own distinctive type of specialization, such a suburb is 
forever attempting to keep itself isolated from the great city and 
immune from the unsavory political and social reputation of the 
metropolis, but is forever being drawn closer and closer within 
the sphere of urban influence by its economic dependence and be¬ 
cause of its own desirability from the standpoint of aspiring 
metropolitans. One by one residential suburbs have been almost 
literally swailowed up by the ever extending city. Hyde Park, 
now in Chicago, was once a quiet, delightful community of homes 
which voted to come into the city only on condition that its 
scruples be respected and liquor stores be kept out of the pro¬ 
hibition districts, covering about eight square miles of the town. 
Because of the proximity of the University of Chicago many of 
the traits of the old Hyde Park still remain, but these constitute 
simply a vague undertone to the great roar of the rushing city. 
As old suburbs disappear new ones are being formed, for those 
who have the means continue to pursue the advantages which are 
attached to the more exclusive residential community. Many of 
the people who gave Mount Vernon, Malden, Lakewood, and 
Oak Park their delightful cultural atmosphere have already moved 
on to less crowded regions, not yet profaned by the presence of 


no 


City and Church in Transition 

hoi polloi. Only a few palatial homes, such as gave these cities 
their reputation, are now being built within them; apartment 
houses are replacing single-family dwellings and spacious private 
grounds are being subdivided into fifty-foot lots. Sic transit 
gloria. 


Illlllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllffl 



The Resort City: 

The Playtown of the Nation 

10 NG the most interesting of American cities are those 



which specialize in helping the weary businessman to 


JL JL forget the pressure of affairs and the club-worn society 
matron to relax. The delightful promenades, with a border of 
brightly lighted and attractive shops, intriguing auction rooms 
where the “ rarest of fancy laces and linens are sold for a frac¬ 
tion of their true worth,” afford a distraction from the routine 
of life. The palate as well as the eye is tempted. In short, the 
inhabitants of resort cities have as their one great industry the 
entertainment and refreshment of the visiting guest. 

When Mediopolis appears in the role of resort city it is more 
akin to the commercial and the residential suburb than to either 
type of industrial city. Like the commercial center and even 
more like the exclusive suburb, it depends primarily on trade and 
personal services rather than on manufacturing for its income. 
If employment in industry be taken as the criterion for classifica¬ 
tion of urban types, the industrial suburb stands at the one ex¬ 
treme, the commercial city in central position, and the resort, 
with a minimum of such activity, at the opposite end. Unlike the 
commercial city, the resort city depends for its trade and prosperity 
not on the purchasing power of the hinterland, but on the surplus 
earnings which vacationists from far-distant cities and rural areas 
contribute to its economy. 


hi 



112 


City and Church in Transition 


Economic Basis of the Resort City 

The resort city is one of the many specialized agencies developed 
in modern America. Only where there is procurable a surplus 
over and above the necessities of life does any type of vacation 
become possible. Unless there were hundreds of thousands of 
persons who could afford vacations, resort cities would not exist. 
Mountain retreats and watering places have flourished from the 
time of the early Greeks to the present, for there have always been 
a few who could enjoy the leisure made possible by the labor 
of the masses. The upper one per cent might account for a 
Bar Harbor in our day, but it could not give rise to a Coney 
Island or an Atlantic City. Never before has there been so 
large a proportion of society which could enjoy a vacation period 
of two weeks or more. The middle class Englishman, who thinks 
himself lucky to be able to spend two week ends in the country, 
hears with amazement and considerable envy of his cousin in 
America who complains of having only two weeks away from the 
office. Although most workers in industry have not had vacations 
with pay, thousands of business concerns are beginning to change 
their practice in this regard. The trend will probably continue 
and will doubtless give rise to more resort cities. 

These cities by their very nature do not develop a population 
of a half million or more. Indeed, they rarely rise to even the 
fifty thousand level, for if a city with resort resources should 
approach the hundred thousand mark it would begin to lose much 
of the attractiveness which causes people to enjoy it as a resort 
and would tend to become just another commercial city. Vaca¬ 
tionists would then prefer to patronize the smaller adjacent com¬ 
munities which still specialized on the resort pattern. Since a 
resort is usually “ on the edge of things ” and transportation to 
the market is more costly, the location which is ideal for a resort 
community is generally unsatisfactory for industrial development. 
Further, its high rate of mobility, with shortage of labor in the 


The Resort City: Playtown of the Nation 113 

rush season, discourages industrialists from locating there. A 
factory can operate more smoothly in a less stimulating and vola¬ 
tile community; Industrial development thus being precluded, 
a large year-round population cannot be supported and therefore 
is not attracted. 

The resort city does not make an appeal to everyone who has 
a two-week vacation. Many prefer the open road and the tourist 
cabin; others go to the national parks, to lodges and camps in 
mountain or wilderness. There are great numbers of city dwellers, 
however, who are not attracted by the open spaces and feel more 
at home in a resort community which is essentially urban in 
character. In addition there are throngs of rural and small-town 
people who look forward to a thrilling week at some spot where 
there are bright lights, theaters, gaily decorated shop windows, and 
a crowded beach. Naturally such a resort must be readily ac¬ 
cessible by means of good transportation service. A sizable city 
for vacationists could not develop far removed from centers of 
population, as among the lakes of northern Wisconsin or Minne¬ 
sota, partly because such districts do not attract the masses of 
people and partly because of the relative isolation and inaccessi¬ 
bility of such a region to the densely populated areas of the 
Atlantic coast. 


Types of Resort Cities 

Vacations are of different types, and so are resorts. People 
who are free for Saturday afternoon and evening or whose vaca¬ 
tions are limited, because of the nature of their work and their 
finances, to a one-day “ spree ” patronize such a place as Coney 
Island. Few New Yorkers go to Atlantic City for one day be¬ 
cause of the time and expense involved, but for Philadelphians 
Atlantic City serves as a one-day resort center. Most of the 
visitors in Atlantic City, however, are there for a one- or two-week 
period. It therefore attracts a somewhat different clientele than 
does Coney Island. They both invite patronage in the summer, 


114 City and Church in Transition 

when the average industrial or clerical worker has his holiday 
and the middle classes and the masses enjoy their one vacation of 
the year. 

Miami, however, attracts the two-vacation-a-year people, those 
who can afford a respite during the winter season also. Though 
the business executive himself cannot leave his office, he may 
send his wife or daughter south to avoid the rigors of the northern 
climate. The society pages of the metropolitan dailies have done 
much to make winter vacations popular, giving attention as they 
do to the elite who can bask in the southern sun, while those who 
stay at home read the paper and, as they busily stoke the furnace 
or go to work in a cold elevated train, envy the more fortunate 
ones. Similar publicity is not given to the summertime vaca¬ 
tionists in popular resorts, for during the summer the two-vaca¬ 
tion people are supplying the society pages with copy on either 
their European travels or their exploits in some more exclusive 
mountain resort. The appeal of Miami then is in general to 
a different economic class; this accounts for the numerous im¬ 
portant differences between Atlantic City and Miami in atmos¬ 
phere and institutions. 

On the opposite side of the continent there is a resort city which 
has a still different pattern. San Diego, in the southwestern 
corner of the nation, is a prosperous city of a hundred fifty thou¬ 
sand. Because of its distance from the chief population centers 
of the United States it is beyond the reach of those who have only 
a short vacation. In the wintertime it competes to a certain 
extent with Miami as a resort for the two-vacation-a-year people. 
Yet even then it is under a handicap because of its distance from 
the populous northeastern section of the nation. Its relatively 
cool summer temperature attracts to it many tourists during that 
season. However, the distinctive character of San Diego is due 
to neither of these two groups, but rather to the large number of 
men and women who have gone west to retire in this genial 
climate. The percentage of persons sixty-five years of age and 
over in San Diego is about twice the average for the nation as 


The Resort City: Play town of the Nation 115 

a whole, or for such municipalities as Atlantic City or Miami. 
Because of the presence of this large number of elderly people 
who are in the city as permanent residents, not as transients, 
and also because of the commercial features added as the city 
has expanded, the typical resort atmosphere is less evident. Were 
it not for the fact that one of the principal bases of the United 
States Navy is located at San Diego and that there are always 
thousands of young men in and about town, the city would have 
a still more quiet and circumspect appearance. 

In Miami and Atlantic City the persons who are most in evi¬ 
dence are the transients. They arrive, have dealings with the 
“ natives,” enjoy themselves for a time, and return home. They 
do not mingle socially with the local people and there is a definite 
distinction between the outsiders and the townsfolk. In San Diego 
many of the people of leisure have settled down to stay; they 
have bought a little home and become identified with the local 
community. Many are active in the churches and civic enter¬ 
prises and think of themselves as participants in the local life, not 
as sight-seers. Here, then, is an interesting contrast between three 
types of resort: Atlantic City, with a summertime clientele and 
accommodations ranging from pretentious hotels facing the board¬ 
walk to humble housekeeping rooms several blocks from the 
ocean; Miami, with its more exclusive wintertime patronage; and 
San Diego, which in addition to its attraction for winter and 
summer visitors persuades retiring oldsters by the thousands to 
choose it as a permanent home. 

Social Traits 

In spite of these differences, however, all resort cities possess 
certain traits in common. The native white population is domi¬ 
nant, whether the city be located in the north or the south, the 
east or the west. It is not surprising that there are few foreign- 
born; these settle in the great metropolitan districts where in¬ 
dustries offer better employment opportunities to those who have 
not yet mastered the language or secured enough reserve to own 


n6 City and Church in Transition 

a shop or a rooming house. Yet each resort city does have a 
large group of domestic servants, hotel porters, attendants, wait¬ 
resses, and others who constitute a more humble economic class. 
Atlantic City and Miami have approximately the same percentage 
of Negro population, a fourth of the total. In San Diego eight 
per cent of the inhabitants are Mexicans. These are among the 
people who perform the more menial tasks. 

Such cities have a high literacy rate and the educational op¬ 
portunities are at least equal to the average offered in the United 
States. San Diego, as is the case with most western cities, has 
an unusually large proportion of its children attending high 
school and college. 

Resort cities are a haven for those whose home life has been 
disrupted by death or divorce and, as the census figures show, 
a relatively high percentage of both men and women in these 
communities are either widowed or divorced. This is particularly 
true of San Diego, which has a higher proportion of older persons 
(and therefore more who have been widowed) and which is in 
a section of the country where divorce is accepted more com¬ 
placently. 

In occupations also these three cities have marked similarities. 
Apart from the large number employed in domestic and personal 
service, which is a characteristic of the type, the chief occupational 
classification is trade, about one in five persons being so employed. 
This average is about the same as in commercial cities. Since 
there are few industries in resort communities, the percentage 
employed in manufacturing is about one-half that found in com¬ 
mercial cities and a quarter of that in industrial centers. Be¬ 
cause of the constant demand for changes in tourist quarters, 
erection and repair of hotels, redecoration of buildings, more men 
are employed in the building trades in resort cities than in any 
other urban type. One might expect that in such communities, 
as in residential suburbs, there would be many professional people. 
However, this is not the case, Atlantic City and Miami having a 
smaller proportion in these elite occupations than commercial 


TABLE VI 

OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION IN RESORT CITIES 


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ii8 City and Church in Transition 

cities, while San Diego rates somewhat higher; all three fall con¬ 
siderably below the proportion found in residential suburbs. This 
would seem to indicate that the higher standards of living which 
make it possible for tourists to visit the resorts are not shared 
to any great degree by the people who live there all the year 
round. 

As has been pointed out, the cities which have been included 
within this type show interesting variations from one another. 
For instance, in San Diego one in every eight of the residents 
is engaged in public service. This is six or seven times the average, 
and is accounted for by the seven thousand men in the army, 
navy and marine corps. More persons are also employed as 
teachers, since a larger proportion of the children continue their 
education after the age of sixteen. There are more doctors, partly 
because of the unusual number of older people, partly because 
living standards generally seem to be somewhat higher. At the 
same time however there are not as many employed in domestic 
and personal service; this is evidence that there are fewer tran¬ 
sients and that there are many middle class homes whose relatively 
simple needs are met without difficulty by the housewife. 

In Atlantic City, where there is more transiency than in any 
other municipality included within the scope of this study, over 
one-third of the entire employed population is engaged in domestic 
and personal service. Practically all who are able-bodied and 
of an employable age can find work in meeting the needs of 
the visitors. Over two-thirds of all the men and women between 
the ages of fifteen and sixty-five were gainfully employed at the 
time the last census was taken. This is the highest percentage 
of employed for any of the sample cities in the study. Atlantic 
City may be called the acme of the resort type of Mediopolis. 

The City of the Boardwalk 

Atlantic City frankly sets out to be the convention center and 
the amusement capital of America. From the time of its in¬ 
corporation in 1854 until the present it has been a resort com- 


ng 


The Resort City: Play town of the Nation 

munity. With its extended bathing beach and boardwalk, its 
myriad hotels, its ocean piers, theaters and motion picture palaces, 
its countless shops and concessions, it has both the natural setting 
and the man-made artifices to drive dull care away. Although 
the permanent population is only seventy thousand the city takes 
care of an estimated twelve million visitors per year. Approxi¬ 
mately twelve hundred hotels, some pretentious in size and struc¬ 
ture, others quite humble, cater to the needs of these people. 
In addition, there are many rooming and boarding houses, or¬ 
ganized on a simpler plan to serve those with slimmer purses. 

While Atlantic City is a mecca for conventions throughout the 
year, the tourist influx comes between June and September; it 
is particularly for the summer that Atlantic City grooms itself. 
Then the city of homes becomes a city of transients. Cars from 
every state of the union are parked along the streets and in the 
yards of the private homes whose rooms have been rented. Most 
of the local families look forward to this period, refurbishing as 
many rooms as can be spared to rent to outsiders; for this is an 
easy means of supplementing the family income. Even homes six 
or more blocks away from the ocean are able to secure their 
quota of roomers, so great is the demand for sleeping quarters. 
The focus of interest is the beach and the well advertised board¬ 
walk, which extends for eight miles along the water front. This 
promenade, sixty feet wide and bordered with shops of all descrip¬ 
tions, is the main artery so far as resort life is concerned. In the 
season most people whom one sees on the streets, whether clad 
in beach costume or street wear, are going to or from it. 

Partly because of its vacation aspect and partly because of its 
excellent hotel accommodations, conventions by the score are held 
at Atlantic City. In any one week as many as ten to twenty-five 
organizations may be holding their annual meetings in one of 
the hotels or the great convention hall. This hall, which At¬ 
lantic City claims to be the world’s largest, has a total seating 
capacity of forty-one thousand. Impressed by the constant stream 
of people from all parts of the United States who pass this way 


120 


City and Church in Transition 

and have a few idle hours or days to spend, many manufacturing 
and merchandising organizations which appeal to the national 
market maintain permanent boardwalk displays. 

Every aspect of Atlantic City life is influenced by the major 
emphasis on catering to the visitors. For example, four out of 
ten who are gainfully employed are engaged in domestic or per¬ 
sonal service, earning their living in the numerous hotels, operat¬ 
ing laundry and pressing services, pushing wheel chairs on the 
boardwalk, and so forth. The dominance of the hotel, with its 
opportunities for work, is reflected in the larger number of women 
(a 20 per cent excess in the ages fifteen through twenty-nine) 
in the city’s population. Where there are so many opportuni¬ 
ties for employment in domestic service (always a low-paid 
group of occupations) people from lower income groups are at¬ 
tracted, while white-collar workers prefer to locate in another 
city. This accounts in considerable measure for the number of 
Negroes (23.6 per cent) and for the number of foreign-born (15 
per cent) in Atlantic City. The latter come chiefly from Russia, 
Italy, England, Ireland, and Germany. The majority of those 
who are of Russian or German extraction are Jewish. Many of 
these operate rooming houses or run small concessions. 

The home in a resort city plays a less important role than in 
other urban centers. There is too much going and coming, the 
mobility rate is too high, for the most stable relations to be main¬ 
tained. The wife who is operating a rooming house is so busy 
performing the tasks of housekeeper that she has less time for 
rearing a family. One indication of this is that in Atlantic City 
only 20 per cent of the total population is under fifteen years of 
age, compared with an average of 26 per cent for the cities of 
the nation. 

While Atlantic City caters to those who have an economic sur¬ 
plus to spend in recreational activities, the residents themselves 
enjoy few of the luxuries which they provide for others. Their 
occupations are not the most remunerative, roomers interfere with 
the privacy of their homes, and somewhat fewer of the young 


12 I 


The Resort City: Playtown of the Nation 

people continue their education beyond high school than in 
most American cities. Atlantic City may be likened to a one- 
industry town, whose business consists in catering to the interests 
and well-being of the visitors. Because of the nature of this in¬ 
dustry there are countless odd jobs, suited to the varying abilities 
of children of different ages: pushing wheel chairs, setting up 
bowling pins, serving as bellboys or waitresses, renting beach 
chairs and umbrellas, or assisting parents in the family shop or 
rooming house. These work opportunities doubtless present a 
constant temptation to young people to neglect further schooling 
and “ earn an honest penny.” 

Atlantic City, the resort town par excellence, is a hive of busy 
workers throughout the summer, when the residents labor for 
long hours, earning most of their living during the four-month 
season. Their own rest period comes during the winter months. 
This abnormal organization of the local culture pattern presents 
a set of difficult problems for the church or any other institution 
which seeks to build itself into the community. 

The Future of the Resort City 

One may think of the resort city as a product of the machine 
age. As the machine increases production and gradually frees 
man from drudgery, real wages tend to rise and a margin for 
better living is created. More persons are able to enjoy vacation 
periods. Travel facilities improve, resorts prosper. 

Like the industrial suburb, though at the opposite end of the 
production line, the resort city suffers disastrously during a de¬ 
pression period. The luxuries of life are eliminated from the 
budget, and holidays and travel are, for the majority, luxuries. 
Nevertheless, the outlook for resort communities is bright. Gov¬ 
ernments the world over, whether they be democratic, fascist, or 
communist, whether they restrict freedom of speech or permit it, 
have discovered the importance of the common, garden variety 
citizen. The program of the state is increasingly designed to 
protect him, either in democratic or in paternalistic fashion. 


122 


City and Church in Transition 

Labor trends in this country give definite evidence that militant 
trade unions will be able to enforce not only collective bargaining 
but also, in due course, vacations with pay. In other lands, in¬ 
cluding Russia and Germany, the importance of rest and recrea¬ 
tion is being recognized and resorts established and vacation 
tours organized, expenses frequently being paid by the govern¬ 
ment itself. The expectation may well be, therefore, that many 
resorts will be developed and that not a few will grow to the 
size of Mediopolis. To be sure, the increase of cities of this type 
and their prosperity gives no assurance that the institutions of 
religion will fare equally well. Indeed, the problem of the church 
in the resort community is one of the most complicated facing 
organized religion in America. 


PART TWO 


IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM 

THE CHURCH IN ITS COMMUNITY 





'I 






8 


The Church Grows Up with Its City 


I T IS OUT of human needs that institutions arise. W. I. 
Thomas has referred to the deep-seated longings of man as 
the basic social forces; and such they are. In response to 
these inherent desires found in mankind everywhere arise those 
agencies which protect and which give opportunity for personal 
and group self-realization. These basic longings have been de¬ 
scribed as the desire for security, mental and spiritual as well 
as economic; the desire for new and enlarging experiences; the 
desire for love, affection, response; and the desire for recognition 
and status in the eyes of one’s fellows. Out of these great and 
universal desires has arisen the institution which we call the 
family; the same drives inherent within man find expression in 
the state, the school, and the church. This last institution is in¬ 
deed an aspect and an evidence of man’s striving for spiritual 
reality, his craving for one particular kind of security, the desire 
to feel at home in the world about him. More than this, the local 
church offers fellowship, an opportunity for self-expression, a 
measure of social status, and perhaps the zest of a great spiritual 
adventure. 

The social group, arising out of the interrelationships of people, 
is primary to all our social institutions. The community does 
not exist for the sake of the public school any more than man 
exists for the Sabbath. Similarly the church owes its being to 
the community, and not vice versa. The church, like virtue, can 
never exist in the abstract; it has its rise in community life and 
depends on the community for its support. It is an important 

125 




126 


City and Church in Transition 

and integral part of the American scene precisely because it has 
been measurably successful in assisting men and women in the 
solution of some of their important life problems and in the 
satisfaction of various personal and social cravings. 

The church is one of the important institutions which comprise 
the American heritage. It has followed as a matter of course 
that when a new community is being formed the leaders plan 
to organize a church in much the same manner as they establish 
a local public school, though perhaps with less unanimity. It 
is expected that one public school will be adequate to meet the 
needs of a village. There is no such consensus when the church 
is under discussion, for denominations still tend to be sectarian 
in their attitude. In theory each is tolerant of the other and 
wishes general cooperation. In actual practice, however, the 
observer is impressed by the unwillingness of churchmen in many 
a local community to compromise. Each denomination feels 
“ responsible ” for having the good work go forward under its 
own auspices. While this is less true now than it was fifty years 
ago, the effects of the earlier policy are still in evidence, and 
towns of one thousand inhabitants are commonly served by eight 
or more churches, each one desperately struggling to maintain a 
foothold. 

How Population Traits Affect the Church 

Some of these religious differences represent marked contrasts 
in the general cultural background of the people. For example, 
the traditions and training of the Polish immigrants are definitely 
Roman Catholic; consequently when many Poles reside in a 
town it is to be expected that they will support a strong Catholic 
church. Similarly, those of north German stock call for a Lutheran 
church, while the Dutch favor the Reformed churches. The more 
generations a family has been resident in this country and the 
more assimilated its members are to the general American cul¬ 
ture, the less significant from a cultural standpoint are denomina¬ 
tional differences. These are often maintained because of loyalty 


127 


The Church Grows Up with Its City 

to family tradition and to the social inheritance of various prefer¬ 
ences and prejudices, rather than because of any sharp doctrinal 
difference. Even when denominational authorities effect a comity 
arrangement whereby certain churches will withdraw in favor 
of others, there is often intense resentment on the part of some 
local members over such a “ desertion.” 

When however the village, aided by its natural location or by 
fortuitous circumstances, begins to develop rapidly, most of the 
churches located within one or two blocks of the town square 
thrive, increasing in membership and also in influence. Those 
prosper which are favored by the new accessions to the popula¬ 
tion. During the first stages of the city’s expansion, the new¬ 
comers are chiefly from the surrounding hamlets and rural areas 
and have much the same social background and religious prefer¬ 
ence as are evidenced in the town itself. Grand Rapids, which 
has grown up in a section of the country settled by Hollanders, 
is therefore a stronghold for the Dutch Reformed and Evangelical 
churches. Des Moines is still benefiting from the early work of 
the Methodist circuit riders. The people who move into Salt 
Lake City from surrounding towns find the Mormon dominance 
very congenial, for that whole area was originally settled by the 
Latter-day Saints. If by chance an industrial corporation selects 
a town as the site for its factories, then people will be attracted 
from a wider area. While some come from the immediate hinter¬ 
land many will be imported directly from the large city’s labor 
market, and what was once a Protestant town may become a 
dominantly Catholic city. 

In this way the population growth tends to shape the religious 
life of the community and to determine which organizations will 
prosper and which will remain static. It should be noted that 
other factors are also important: the number of church members, 
their age and sex distribution, their social and financial status in 
the community and their leadership abilities, the personality 
and skills of the minister, the effectiveness of the church organiza¬ 
tion and the adequacy of its building. Many of these are im- 


128 


City and Church in Transition 

ponderable factors whose influence, while significant, is difficult 
to measure. Even a little shift in population will cause one 
church to prosper and another to slide downhill. A change of 
ministers, the death or withdrawal of a few members, or an or¬ 
ganizational conflict, and the church which was prospering may 
recede from its dominant position, while another moves forward 
to take its place. 

As the city develops, the area which is tributary to it expands 
and the institutions of the city also become stronger and more 
influential. As the high school draws children from surrounding 
regions, so too do the churches. This is particularly true of those 
in which there is a strong and effective leadership, since they are 
best able to utilize the growing dominance of the city in the re¬ 
gion for the strengthening of their program and the promotion 
of their own prestige. After a city reaches twenty-five or fifty 
thousand population, its own internal structure becomes much 
more complicated and only a few of the churches continue to 
exert an influence beyond the municipal boundaries — although 
it should be noted that the city then covers a larger area, in¬ 
corporating many sections which were formerly outside the town 
but tributary to it. 

First Church versus the Community Church 

Until a city reaches a population of five thousand it is served 
almost entirely by the “ first ” churches which were originally 
built near the center of the crossroads settlement and are now 
usually one to three blocks away from the courthouse square. 
An inevitable accompaniment of continued growth is the develop¬ 
ment first of local neighborhoods in different sections of the town 
and later of distinct and self-conscious communities. Within 
these, new churches will be started, possibly under the sponsor¬ 
ship of the “ first ” church of the same denomination or perhaps 
on the initiative of a few earnest persons who wish to have a 
local Sunday school for the sake of their own and the neighbors’ 
children. Such small missions or community churches operate 


129 


The Church Grows Up with Its City 

for a period of time on a very modest budget, maintaining perhaps 
only a Sunday school program, with occasional meetings for adults. 
The frame structure in which the sessions are held is inexpensive 
to maintain and not particularly attractive. Most persons prefer 
to hold their membership in the downtown church even after 
the neighborhood institution decides to try to support a full¬ 
time minister. 

These small, struggling chapels frequently play the role of 
stepchildren in the larger family of churches. The “ first ” 
church, established from ten to fifty years earlier, owns a good 
plot of ground near the center of the growing city and boasts 
an imposing sanctuary and a commodious parish house; it has had 
time to pay off most of its debt. It is larger in membership, has 
greater resources, is able to secure the services of a higher paid 
and therefore presumably more able or experienced minister, and 
perhaps a paid staff as well. In its roster are usually listed the 
personages of the city, the old-timers, the owners of well estab¬ 
lished businesses, and the professional people. 

Against this church, for a decade or more, the little community 
chapel in one of the newer sections of town has no advantages, 
except that it is nearer and therefore more accessible to the 
children and has the flavor of the local community; here one 
can meet and worship with his neighbors. These modest assets 
do not attract the majority of persons, even those whose homes 
are in the same block with the church; they are attracted by the 
greater resources and the more worshipful sanctuary as well as 
the social contacts to be found downtown. Naturally the “ first ” 
church continues to grow in size and prestige. Most of the per¬ 
sons moving into the city and joining a religious organization by 
transfer of membership elect the “ downtown ” church, as it is 
beginning to be called, for their spiritual home. 

This situation is the cause of no little tension and conflict in 
the city’s organized religious life. The pastor of the larger church, 
noting the slow growth of the “ stepchild,” may conclude that 
the minister in that church must be inefficient, lazy, or a poor 


130 City and Church in Transition 

organizer, little realizing to what an extent the social situation 
operates in his own favor. Convinced that the smaller institu¬ 
tion is not meeting the needs in that particular area, and recog¬ 
nizing that his own church has members there, he may request 
his governing board to hire an additional worker so that these 
people may be served. 

Tension is felt even more keenly in the smaller church, and 
not infrequently the local minister is somewhat annoyed by his 
“ big brother ” in the pastorate. Writes one indignant minister 
serving such a church: 

The preacher at First Church has persuaded his board to rent a 
bus to travel through our whole community picking up children to 
take them to his Sunday school, even taking some from the block 
in which our little church is located. And then he has the nerve to 
talk about “ our Christian brotherhood ” and “ our common task.” 
Competition within our denomination in our town is as cutthroat as 
in any business game. 

By the time churches are being established in the outlying por¬ 
tions of the small city, the outward movement of residences from 
the center of town has already begun. Long before a city is 
able to boast in its chamber of commerce literature that it has 
“ a quarter of a hundred thousand population ” private homes 
have disappeared from the main business section. A few of the 
churches have also moved away, selling at a profit the old site, 
which will now be used for a department store, theater, or 
hotel. A less expensive location can be obtained some blocks 
away and a more modern edifice erected. Most of the original 
churches, however, remain in or on the fringe of the developing 
business district, and continue to grow in strength, even though 
their members are scattered through all parts of the city and may 
now have to come by car. 

As the city continues to expand, the various outlying communi¬ 
ties give evidence as to what their future development will be. 
They are achieving character, becoming individualized. A type 


The Church Grows Up with Its City 131 

of informal and more or less unplanned segregation begins to 
take effect. The section across the river on the high land is 
being pre-empted by “ successful ” young businessmen who are 
building pretentious homes there. To the southwest there is a 
middle class development, while to the southeast on the lower 
land and nearer the factories a newly self-conscious community 
of Italians is found. In the latter area the Protestant societies are 
weak, but in the other sections of the city they are replacing 
their small frame edifices with larger and more beautiful per¬ 
manent structures. Even yet people are chary of membership 
in the neighborhood congregation, for debts are heavy and 
each new recruit is confronted with the responsibility of sharing 
in the financial burden. The advantages of the downtown churches 
with their well oiled organization and stable financial structure 
prove to be an even greater attraction for some people than they 
were before. 


Mobility Creates a Pattern 

Somewhere between the time when a city reaches a population 
of fifty thousand and when it arrives at the hundred fifty thou¬ 
sand mark (i. e., within the population class of Mediopolis) cer¬ 
tain crucial changes take place both within the structure of the 
city itself and in the life of the churches, tied as they are to the 
city’s development. Formerly the residents thought in terms of 
the total city, and neighborhood differences were of minor sig¬ 
nificance. With increasing density of population, the various 
communities, and with them their local institutions, begin to 
attain selfhood. In the city of less than fifty thousand people 
the pattern is relatively simple and religious leadership is cen¬ 
tralized. By the time the city has tripled in size its social and 
also its religious organization have become surprisingly like those 
of the complex, multi-communitied metropolis. As this change 
(described in detail in chapter 2) takes place, the church which 
was once a Cinderella puts on the glass slipper. It now has a 
more beautiful building, whose new limestone exterior stands 


CHURCH GROWTH AND CHANGE 

IN DES MOINES 1890-1935 

FOUR PROTESTANT DENOMINATIONS (WHITE) 

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DENOMINATIONS 

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CENTER OF CIRCLE - LOCATION OF CHURCH 













































134 


City and Church in Transition 

in pleasing contrast to the old, dingy, red-brick structure in which 
the “ first ” church has been housed for these many years. Some 
of the long-time adherents of the central church are finding that 
it is after all more convenient to join the institution two blocks 
from home. Their young people prefer to attend locally, where 
they see their school and neighborhood friends. And so, at long 
last, memberships are transferred. 

The forces which once operated in favor of the central church 
are gradually set against it. Once the great strong focus of the 
religious life of the denomination for the whole county, it now 
is beginning to yield its place of prestige to two or three of the 
younger churches. The passage of the years and the further de¬ 
velopment of the city may, in the course of several decades, turn 
this church which was once the dependable source for missionary 
funds into a recipient of home missionary aid, while the churches 
originally established as small Sunday school missions have grown 
larger than the mother congregation and are now giving the latter 
financial assistance. One by one most of the old downtown 
churches either move out into a suburban location, frequently 
entering into open competition with another society of their own 
denomination already established there, or sell their property and 
dissolve as a corporate organization, the scattered members join¬ 
ing the church nearest them. This pattern of church mobility 
occasioned by the outward movement of population is rarely com¬ 
plete until the city has attained the half-million mark. How¬ 
ever, the crucial change is initiated and well under way while 
the city is in the range of Mediopolis. 

The accompanying maps illustrate clearly what takes place in 
the institutions of religion as a city grows from fifty to a hundred 
fifty thousand, as Des Moines did between 1890 and 1935. This 
city has two groups of central churches, best seen on the map of 
1890. The “ first ” churches are located toward the west, close 
to the central business district; the group to the east clusters 
about the state capitol. Community churches had been estab¬ 
lished at an earlier period and some had grown to a membership 


The Church Grows Up with Its City 135 

of three hundred, but they were overshadowed by the downtown 
institutions. The maps for 1905 and 1920 demonstrate that the 
older societies continued to grow, but the rate of development 
for community churches accelerated. By 1935 one of the first 
churches has moved out beyond the two-mile zone and a second 
shows a declining membership. Two continue to register a growth. 
One of those near the state capitol has also disappeared; the others 
have grown, one chiefly because of a merger. The community 
churches are now entering a period of rapid expansion and the 
forces operating against them in 1890 are turned in their favor. 
The churches of Des Moines are again becoming community in¬ 
stitutions located in residence districts, drawing much of their 
membership from the immediate vicinity; like the old “ first ” 
churches in the earlier days of the city, they are serving chiefly 
the people in the local area. Out on the periphery younger so¬ 
cieties are gaining a foothold. So the process continues. 

In a city of half a million people this shift has, for better or 
worse, been completely effected so far as the downtown denomi¬ 
national churches are concerned. In some cities not a single regu¬ 
larly organized church remains in the downtown area, although 
a few specialized congregations may cling to its fringes. In others, 
one or two weak, moribund churches struggle along, uncertain 
whether they can survive for a year or a decade. When the few 
loyal men and women for whom such an institution is a beloved 
cause die, it too will probably cease to be. In certain other great 
cities there is a stalwart church which has weathered the storms 
and continues to minister in the heart of the business district. 
It has survived so long that now the members of the denomination, 
who are scattered far and wide, regard its continuance as sym¬ 
bolic of the triumph of the cross over the city, take pride in it 
and stand ready to give financial aid if need be. To be sure, its 
membership is now smaller than formerly and there are fewer 
young people in the church school. It ministers to a larger num¬ 
ber of transients, chiefly single men and women, and to fewer 
family groups. Its function has changed, yet its influence on and 


136 City and Church in Transition 

contribution to the religious life of the city may have increased. 
Its financial needs are partially met through endowment, mission¬ 
ary aid or, perhaps, income from some business block or office 
building which it owns. 

Specialization in the Churches of Mediopolis 

Returning to Mediopolis, one finds a few specialized religious 
organizations being established near the center of the city. Since 
their clientele is small and sprinkled over the town the most ac¬ 
cessible point for the membership is that which is best linked 
to the different communities of the city: the downtown area. If 
there is an Ethical Society it will probably be found here. This 
is the best place for the Friends’ meetinghouse. When the city 
was smaller there were too few Quakers to support a separate 
church. If there are a number of deaf-mutes, they can more 
easily come from their homes in various districts to share in a 
service downtown. The growth of the city makes possible such 
religious specialization, just as it does specialization in business, 
in the professions and in social welfare agencies. In this way a 
few religious organizations, each with a small and scattered con¬ 
stituency, perhaps conducting only one or two meetings a week 
and not attempting to operate as full-fledged churches, come to 
have their locus in or near the central business district. This 
development takes place at the very time that the downtown 
churches of the larger denominations are finding it more and more 
difficult to continue. Salt Lake City presents a peculiar illustra¬ 
tion of this pattern: the church of the Latter-day Saints is domi¬ 
nant; Protestant denominations are weak. Practically the only 
effective Protestant churches are those which are centrally lo¬ 
cated and have a city-wide membership. 

Within the stronger communions which have a number of 
churches in the growing city of Mediopolis another type of spe¬ 
cialization is taking place. A mission chapel is being opened in 
the Italian community and a second-generation Italian convert to 


137 


The Church Grows Up with Its City 

Protestantism has been appointed pastor. On the other side of 
town is a residential area which was once considered high class, 
but the older families have moved out and unskilled and semi¬ 
skilled workers with various racial backgrounds have moved in. 
A number of the churches have been withdrawn, partly because 
the people of the community were unresponsive (to the conven¬ 
tional program) and partly because the institution could be sus¬ 
tained only with liberal use of missionary funds. A couple of 
the vacated buildings have been taken over by the revivalistic 
sects — the Nazarenes, the Four-Square Gospelers, or similar 
organizations. With their more emotional appeal and their greater 
assurance concerning the answers to all of life’s spiritual ques¬ 
tions, they appear to secure a response not enjoyed by the older 
society. 

However, one denomination, determined not to withdraw from 
the area, has erected a parish house in which a seven-day-week 
program is carried forward. Various types of clubs and classes 
are open to the children of the neighborhood; a clinic offers medi¬ 
cal and dental services two half-days a week; adult education 
classes attract the mature people of the community on Tuesday 
and Friday evenings; a summer camp in the country has also been 
established. In other words, an organization with a conventional 
program has been metamorphosed into an “ institutional ” church. 
It has recognized that unless it takes into account the distinctive 
traits and needs of the community it will gradually lose its raison 
d'etre. 

Such agencies as the Salvation Army, designed originally to 
rescue the down-and-out and to serve the homeless man, have a 
less important function in Mediopolis than in larger cities where 
social disorganization is more prevalent and where there is greater 
scope for the peculiar genius of rescue-work missions. When 
such an agency chances to settle in Mediopolis it is usually located 
within a lower economic class residential area and carries forward 
a program not very dissimilar to that of the regularly organized 


138 City and Church in Transition 

churches which have successfully adapted their activities to the 
local community. 

In other communities of the city a difference in the type of 
church is also noticeable. Some sections have what may be de¬ 
scribed as “ workingmen’s churches,” operating on modest budgets 
and serving families with equally modest incomes. They are 
self-supporting and carry on the expected functions of the church: 
worship, religious education, women’s and young people’s ac¬ 
tivities, with perhaps a few added projects, such as a Boy Scout 
program. In another and wealthier community the church edi¬ 
fice is larger and more stately; the minister receives a higher 
salary and is frequently -assisted by a paid staff. The program 
here as elsewhere, to be successful, must be based on the par¬ 
ticular needs of the local area; for while people in all sections 
of the city share certain common religious interests, economic and 
social conditions will influence community expectations in the 
church program as well as in other aspects of the cultural life. 
In high class residential districts the people regard it as essential 
that the church be served by an “ eminent ” preacher, that the 
music be rendered by a professional quartet or choir. Less than 
this would be incommensurate with the dignity of their institu¬ 
tion and community. Unfortunately the expectations of such 
people sometimes outrun their willingness to pay the required 
price, with the result that almost the entire budget is spent in 
maintaining the local organization, a far smaller percentage being 
devoted to benevolences than in the budget of some humbler 
churches. 

It is after a city reaches the population of fifty thousand that 
distinctive changes take place in its community pattern. In¬ 
stead of being one unified city it gradually becomes a number 
of distinct communities which, while they have some interests 
in common, live more and more within themselves. Such changes 
in the organization of the city and the development of local 
economic and cultural interests will influence the religious or¬ 
ganizations. The skill and foresight demonstrated by the various 


139 


The Church Grows Up with Its City 

denominations and their churches in meeting these changing, 
specializing conditions in local communities will largely determine 
the future success or failure of organized religion in Mediopolis. 
Therefore this is a critical period in the life of the city and also 
of the church. Mediopolis stands at the half-way house between 
the small city and the metropolis. 


Illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllll 



The Church in the Commercial City 

HERE ARE many social forces which are active in every 



one of the mediopolitan types and which affect all re¬ 


ligious institutions: the changing role of the family in 


society, the decline of the birth rate, the revolt of young people 
against parental controls and ideologies, the increased mobility 
and fluidity of population, the rise of secular agencies competing 
with the church for the time and interest of the people. Within 
this general and universal framework of change, the geographical 
setting and history of the particular city and its hinterland are 
of primary importance in understanding the peculiarities of the 
local religious pattern. 

Although commercial cities show marked resemblance to one 
another, each has its own unique and distinguishing character¬ 
istics which are reflected in the religious life, just as in the po¬ 
litical organization or the park system. Because commercial 
cities are found in all sections of the country there is greater di¬ 
versity among them than among the cities in any of the other 
four urban types, which by their very nature are more specialized 
and therefore more uniform. Such differences have been illus¬ 
trated in the vignettes of Wichita, Montgomery, and Duluth. 
Chattanooga, Salt Lake City, and Sacramento have equally dis¬ 
tinct urban personalities. These unique traits are the result of 
geographic and historical factors which constitute the soil wherein 
social institutions such as the church grow or languish. The 
significance of these elements will be demonstrated by a brief 
consideration of the religious situation in a few commercial cities. 


140 



The Church in the Commercial City 141 

Influence of Regional and Urban Patterns 
on the Churches 

Des Moines is not only the capital of Iowa; it is also the epit¬ 
ome of the state’s culture. It has grown by the influx of young 
men and women from its own hinterland. Therefore Iowa can 
say to Des Moines, “ You are bone of my bone and blood of my 
blood.” The two have one common culture, a summary statement 
of which is given in the life of the capital. Naturally the atti¬ 
tudes, ideals, and interests of the rural and urban dwellers will 
be much the same. The residents of Des Moines are as much 
concerned with agricultural relief as are the farmers, and with 
reason. In like manner, the religious life of Des Moines is char¬ 
acterized by the same loyalties as is that of the hinterland. Since 
Iowa was settled during the middle of the past century by native 
white Americans from the northeastern portion of the United 
States and by immigrants who came chiefly from the Protestant 
sections of northern Europe, and since the later floods of Catholic 
migrants from central and southern Europe were not attracted by 
the agricultural economy of the state, Iowa has remained a 
Protestant stronghold, and so has Des Moines. It is therefore 
not surprising that in that city five out of every seven adults 
having some religious affiliation belong to the Methodist, Presby¬ 
terian, or Baptist denominations (listed in the order of their 
strength). 

Very different in background is Duluth, which serves as the 
trading center of northern Minnesota and a portion of Wisconsin. 
This land was brought under cultivation by Germans and Scandi¬ 
navians. Forty per cent of the people are immigrants or children 
of immigrants from Scandinavia, Finland, or Germany. The 
churches in their European homelands were chiefly Lutheran or 
Roman Catholic. Naturally these are the denominations which 
dominate the religious life of Duluth, the Roman Catholic and 
the Lutheran family of churches serving over half of the people 
who hold any church membership. As a result there is less 


142 City and Church in Transition 

room in Duluth than in Des Moines for such denominations as 
the Baptist or Methodist. 

The unique topography of Duluth is another factor shaping the 
local religious pattern. A shoestring city, it stretches in a narrow 
ribbon along the lake shore and is broken up by natural barriers 
into many small communities. This configuration makes it diffi¬ 
cult for most denominations, which have a relatively small con¬ 
stituency, to develop a strong church serving a local community. 
Since people do not readily cross barriers to attend church an 
unusually large number of religious societies have been formed 
to cover the territory, with the result that many of them are 
stunted. Organized religion is still further handicapped in this 
city by conflicts between old nationality loyalties.* 

El Paso is on an international boundary and has the mixture 
of cultures which characterizes a border city. Over half of the 
population is Mexican, and naturally the Roman Catholic Church 
is preeminent in the city. About two-thirds of all adults claiming 
any church affiliation are in this communion. The fact that 
El Paso is a city of two worlds, Mexican and American, makes 
inevitable much cultural tension and lack of social control. The 
ministers of the city are well aware of this problem. A number 
of them refer to the “ rather low religious ideals of a border city.” 
A second important factor influencing El Paso’s religious life is the 
high rate of mobility. People keep coming and going, for the city, 
a tourist center and a health resort, is situated on one of the 
main transcontinental highways. For the churches this tour¬ 
ist traffic creates both a problem and an opportunity. A minister 
sometimes becomes discouraged at the tiresome, unrewarding rou¬ 
tine of these touch-and-go contacts with transients (who fre¬ 
quently are in desperate need of spiritual as well as of material 
aid). He can continue to be effective in such work only pro¬ 
vided he has the faith to believe that his ministrations are helpful 
to those whom he probably will never see again. These problems 
are not confined to any one denomination, and there is general 

* See pp. 176 f. 


The Church in the Commercial City 143 

agreement among the ministers that “ religious work is slower 
and takes greater effort than in many communities.” 

Montgomery is typical of the commercial cities of the south¬ 
east. The south is historically Protestant, for most of the origi¬ 
nal white settlers, who came more than a century ago, had a 
British background. Population growth has been due princi¬ 
pally to natural causes, excess of births over deaths. Very few of 
the European immigrants of the past century have drifted below 
the Mason-Dixon line. The inflow of central, southern, and 
eastern European migrants, which furnished the chief source of 
Catholic and Jewish strength for northern industrial cities, left 
the south untouched. The Negroes who were brought from Africa 
as slaves took over the white man’s religious views. It is not 
surprising, then, that the churches of Montgomery, which has 
relied on Negro rather than on immigrant labor for its industries, 
are chiefly Protestant, among the colored as well as among the 
whites. In Montgomery as in the whole of the Old South the 
strong denominations are the Baptist and the Methodist. Over 
half of the churches belong to the one or the other of these de¬ 
nominational families.* All other communions fall far behind. 
Typical of the south, where religious traditions are more firmly 
fixed than elsewhere, Montgomery is a well churched city. Three- 
fourths of all persons thirteen years of age and over are affiliated 
with some church; this average is 50 per cent higher than in most 
cities. Practically four out of every five of these persons belong 
to the Baptist or Methodist denominations. The importance of 
the cultural traditions and religious precommitments of the people 
is at once manifest when one considers the lusty growth of these 
denominations in Montgomery and their anemia in Salt Lake 
City. 

The city of Salt Lake is perhaps unique among important 
urban centers of the United States in that it was founded and 

* “ Family of churches ” is a term employed by the United States Bureau 
of the Census to designate the various denominations which have much in 
common in historical development, polity and creed, and which are usually 
included under the generic term Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. 


144 


City and Church in Transition 

developed by an organized religious body. The Latter-day Saints 
carefully planned the future development of both city and region. 
Their westward trek in 1846 and 1847 in pursuit of freedom to 
live by the principles of their religious faith led them to the Salt 
Lake valley, which they believed was the divinely appointed 
place to settle. Reared in the tradition of cooperation, mutual 
helpfulness and strict obedience, they worked as a unit to con¬ 
struct the log huts and till the soil — in short, to establish a 
community. As immigration brought in recruits by the thousands 
colonizing groups were sent out by the parent organization, 
north and south along the valleys, till various subordinate towns 
were established around Salt Lake City and, in fact, most of the 
tillable land of the state was occupied by the Mormons. Through 
it all, Salt Lake City remained the hub, not only because it was 
the religious mecca but also because it was the seat of the closely 
knit, well organized temporal control. There the voice of the 
elders settled whatever disputes might arise in the whole domain. 
In the city were organized the cooperative enterprises, such as 
Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution, whose branches were 
— and still are — to be found in outlying towns and villages. 

Although the discovery of gold in California in 1849 brought 
throngs of prospectors through Salt Lake City on their journey 
westward, this group of communities was comparatively isolated 
and self-centered until the arrival of the Union Pacific railroad in 
1869. With transportation facilities available, exploitation of 
mineral resources began (chiefly by non-Mormon settlers), mark¬ 
ing the beginning of the end of absolute theocratic domination by 
the elders. The vast wealth to be obtained through mining and 
manufacture attracted many “ gentiles,” and their presence 
weakened the control set up by the religious sect. Nevertheless, 
this great intermountain area has retained its Mormon flavor; 
Mormon landmarks and institutions are dominant. One senses 
the power of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints 
in the social and recreational as well as in the religious and busi¬ 
ness life of the city and the region. Practically two-thirds of the 


i45 


The Church in the Commercial City 

entire population thirteen years of age and over are affiliated 
with the Mormon Church. It has no real competitor for the 
religious loyalties of the people; all other denominational groups 
combined have only one-fifth as many adult members. 

The significance of this situation for the “ gentile ” churches 
in the area will readily be seen. There are numerous Protestant 
societies but they are, in the main, weak and struggling organiza¬ 
tions, poorly housed and possessed of a marked feeling of inferi¬ 
ority. The ministers of these subordinate denominations are 
keenly aware of the poor showing which Protestantism makes in 
Salt Lake City and tend to be apologetic for it. One minister 
frankly writes: 

Protestantism is not making any real front before Mormonism. 
The Mormon Church has splendid, well equipped meetinghouses, 
the majority of them built and kept very attractively. The majority 
of the Protestant churches are small, rundown, and anything but 
attractive. Considerable money has been spent in Salt Lake City 
for [Protestant] church buildings, but their design and arrangement 
are a disgrace to the denominations that built them. 

Each denomination has a fine downtown church; people of any 
means or influence associate with the few larger churches. People 
with less means either attend one of the smaller outlying churches 
or do not go to church at all. Thus the smaller churches with a small 
congregation, very moderate means, unattractive church buildings, 
try the ability and patience of the preacher to the limit, drive him to 
despair, and finally crush his spirit. His church building has little 
to attract the interest of his people and usually his broken spirit has 
less. The average pulpit in Salt Lake City is filled only until a man 
is able to find a call to work some place else. 

Few American cities have a larger proportion of church mem¬ 
bers, but in none is Protestantism weaker or more discouraged. 
It is out of this dark background that one of the most interesting 
experiments in Protestant church cooperation is developing. 

Organized Religion in the Commercial City 

Attention having been given to some of the interesting varia¬ 
tions between commercial cities, the general patterns of religious 


146 City and Church in Transition 

development which characterize cities of this type should now be 
considered. 

1. The most noticeable trait of organized religion in the typical 
medium-sized commercial city is the transformation which is tak¬ 
ing place in the downtown churches. If the city is under one 
hundred thousand the central churches are in all likelihood gain¬ 
ing in strength and prestige, in spite of the fact that some of the 
wealthier members may have already affiliated with a newer 
church in their own exclusive community. If the city has passed 
the hundred thousand mark the central churches will, according 
to the formal reports, probably continue to register progress, but 
in some, signs of weakness will frequently be apparent to those able 
to count the pulse beat. The membership may even be growing, 
but the task of raising the budget becomes increasingly difficult as 
older members die and a few of the former contributors transfer 
their allegiance. Some of the downtown churches have already 
been closed or consolidated with another institution of the same 
denomination. This gradual shifting in the role of the downtown 
church can be observed in most cities of this size if a time study 
is made. The series of maps for the city of Des Moines, showing 
the growth and change in four denominations, illustrates this 
transition.* 

2. The second characteristic is the newly found importance 
of the rapidly developing churches located one to four miles from 
the center of the city in the middle class or exclusive residential 
districts. The erection of more stately edifices, the growth of local 
community spirit, the interest of the young people in friendships 
developed locally in the neighborhood and school, are important 
forces operating in favor of such churches. 

3. The continued outward push of population results in the 
establishment of new chapels and missions at the periphery of the 
city. Mission-minded churches and statesmanlike denomina¬ 
tional leaders are interested in obtaining a foothold in the new 

* See maps on pp. 132-33 and the accompanying text. 


147 


The Church in the Commercial City 

subdivisions.* Should the city continue to grow in the next 
thirty to fifty years as it has in the past, these small, struggling 
institutions may in their turn become the pride of their particular 
denomination. 

4. Such population movements have an influence on the dis¬ 
tribution of church members and on the size of the church school. 
In residential sections where there is a high percentage of home 
ownership mobility is low, and both the members and the church 
school scholars come from the local community. As the propor¬ 
tion of renters rises the mobility in the local area increases. This 
carries many members of the local church into adjoining com¬ 
munities, ordinarily farther removed from the center of town, and 
parish boundaries are expanded. As members become more scat¬ 
tered, the church school will lose from its enrollment the children 
of many of these members who prefer to have their boys and girls 
attend a nearby institution, avoiding the risks of crossing busy 
thoroughfares and at the same time enjoying association with 
schoolmates whom they already know. The church which has 
lost these children may continue to have a substantial school, 
because it carries on a vigorous program within the local com¬ 
munity, drawing others whose parents may have no religious 
affiliation whatsoever. Even more affected by population move¬ 
ment are the churches located in the central business district or 
contiguous to it; these have few members living within the im¬ 
mediate vicinity. In fact, there are few families living in the area, 
whether members or nonmembers. Consequently it is to be ex¬ 
pected that even though the membership remains high the church 
school will tend to be small. 

A church may discover the effects of mobility on its own situa¬ 
tion by the preparation of spot maps showing the residences of 
members and of children enrolled in the church school. A series 

* The establishment of such missions involves a number of problems be¬ 
cause of the changing attitude of people toward denominational loyalties and 
because of problems of overchurching and comity. 


148 City and Church in Transition 

of studies of the distribution of the membership at ten- or fifteen- 
year intervals will reveal trends in the movement of members, pre¬ 
saging the future development of the church. Such a series will 
clarify the local situation and may also serve as the basis for 
planning and action. 

5. Some specialized types of church organization make their 
appearance in or near the central business district, as the older 
“ first ” churches move out or decline. Some of these are bilingual 
institutions, founded to serve various foreign language groups. 
These groups have their own small racial colonies usually border¬ 
ing on the downtown or industrial districts in low-rent areas 
formerly occupied by the people of means who have now moved to 
newer communities. Occasionally an institutional church will be 
found in such a deteriorated area, with a well developed seven-day- 
week program caring for the needs of one or many national or ra¬ 
cial groups. This type is more common in the industrial city where 
the constituency for such a church will ordinarily be larger. Vari¬ 
ous missions, with a strong evangelistic program, are also located 
in this district. These usually are not designed for the homeless 
man, as in larger cities, but for members of family groups. 

6. It is generally characteristic of all denominations and of all 
cities — although not invariably typical of every denomination in 
every city — that fewer churches are being opened in proportion 
to the total population than in years past. Since the denomina¬ 
tions have maintained about the same ratio of members to popula¬ 
tion, the average church is larger today than it was ten or twenty 
years ago. This has been a steady trend and has involved the 
elimination of many smaller units, with the consequent enlarge¬ 
ment of the remainder. The same forces are at work in this in¬ 
stance as in the movement for consolidation of schools. With 
larger units, a more adequate program (curriculum) can be offered, 
more capable leaders employed and, in the case of the church, a 
more attractive and worshipful edifice erected. This trend is not 
simply the result of denominational policy; it is to an even greater 
degree the product of Mr. Average Man’s dislike of belonging to 


149 


The Church in the Commercial City 

an anemic organization in which he can take little pride. To use 
Des Moines as an illustration: the average number of communi¬ 
cants in Baptist (white) churches increased steadily from 181 in 
1890 to 484 in 1935; in Methodist churches from 223 to 722, and 
in Presbyterian churches from 195 to 474. Even more striking is 
the change in the Congregational denomination, which for many 
years had four (white) churches, with an average membership in 
1905 of 271. These have consolidated to form one large institu¬ 
tion, with 1500 members. 

Church Membership 

There are certain trends in church membership for cities of the 
commercial type which may be described as characteristic. 

1. The most obvious is that church membership grows as popu¬ 
lation increases. This is to be expected since the church, if active, 
should gain a certain proportion of members from the population 
increment. Reports from commercial cities indicate that in most 
instances, the rate of membership growth is somewhat greater 
than the rate of population increase. The significance of such re¬ 
ports is difficult to ascertain, since an increase in reported mem¬ 
bership may be merely the result of careless bookkeeping or delib¬ 
erate padding of the record. However, there probably is no more 
of such conscious or unconscious misrepresentation now than in 
former periods, since denominations are calling for more detailed 
reports and many ministers are making a fetish of accurate record 
keeping. A further and more important question concerning such 
reports is: What does membership mean in the life of the indi¬ 
vidual ? Even though accurate reporting shows an increase in the 
number of church members, it cannot indicate the spiritual temper 
or the responsiveness of people to religion. 

2. A second characteristic of church membership is that it 
moves out from the downtown section and surrounding areas in 
much the same manner as do the churches. However, the members 
move away from the congested areas ten to twenty years before 
the institutions follow suit. This lag occurs because people mi- 


150 City and Church in Transition 

grating to a more desirable section of the city maintain their old 
interests and loyalties in the church where, perhaps, they were 
married and at whose altar their children were baptized. Here 
in the old church they have status; they are officers in various 
organizations and their assistance is solicited by the minister. 
Were it not for this continued support the church would either 
languish more quickly or would be forced to turn to its local 
community for a clientele. Since the wealthier members and those 
with higher social status are ordinarily the ones who are given 
preferred positions in the church, and since these tend to be the 
first to move out of a deteriorating community, it follows that the 
officers live at a greater distance from the downtown church to 
which they belong than do run-of-the-mill members. The mobility 
pattern may then be described in this way: The first to move are 
the wealthier, those who are leaders and who have the prestige; 
later, when their financial condition makes it possible, other mem¬ 
bers follow, copying the pattern of their social superiors. Sub¬ 
sequently church memberships are transferred or the institution 
itself moves after its constituents. 

3. If a spot map showing the geographic distribution of mem¬ 
bers is prepared for a church whose membership has started to 
move, it will be found that the large majority of adherents will be 
located “ beyond the church,” toward the periphery of the city. 
This distribution is in accordance with the tendency of a city’s pop¬ 
ulation to move out toward the less congested districts. In periods 
of depression there is relatively little movement, because families 
cannot afford to improve their living quarters and are loath to 
move to less satisfactory ones. The return of a period of pros¬ 
perity however again witnesses the continuance of the march to¬ 
ward the more open spaces. This intermittent outward movement 
of population and membership constitutes a crucial problem for 
the church in the city. 

4. John Citizen and his wife prefer the larger churches; hence 
the support for smaller institutions becomes increasingly pre¬ 
carious. People who pay what they regard as a high rental or who 


The Church in the Commercial City 151 

are buying an attractive home do not respond to an unostentatious 
church located in a poor section of the community; it is beneath 
their living standards. They look at it as a member of the golf 
club might view the suggestion that he drop out of his club and 
take a membership in a croquet circle. They would rather belong 
downtown or leave the church altogether. Yet these same persons 
are commonly unwilling to assume a proportionate share of re¬ 
sponsibility for the erection of a more pretentious edifice near by. 
They hope that some missionary society will undertake it for 
them, or at least for their children. In surveying a number of 
“ superior ” residential communities, canvassers have found a 
general desire for a Sunday school, “ to teach our children how to 
be good,” but a disturbing reluctance on the part of adults when 
asked whether they themselves would share in the program and 
bear part of the cost. 

5. The people of Mediopolis are becoming less sectarian partly 
because their attention is divided among the many other organiza¬ 
tions to which they belong, partly because the old lines of denomi¬ 
national division seem less important to them than to their fathers, 
and partly because they are less interested in religion in general. 
Repeatedly, canvassers in unchurched areas are told: “ I do not 
care what kind of church is established, as long as it has a Sunday 
school to which I can send my children.” Or again, “ The denom¬ 
ination makes little difference to me, as long as we do not have a 
whole flock of little competing churches in the community.” 

Both a result and a cause of this attitude is the budding cooper¬ 
ation among pastors of major Protestant bodies. They and their 
ecclesiastical superiors are becoming increasingly tolerant of other 
denominations and are showing a desire for mutual cooperation in 
solving local community problems. A concrete evidence of the 
broadening Christian fellowship is to be found in the comity ar¬ 
rangements in numerous cities, whereby one society will be given 
a clear field in a particular section of the city, while others are 
given the right of way elsewhere. 

Such a change in basic attitudes on the part of the denomina- 


152 


City and Church in Transition 

tions, ministers, and laymen is now evidently in process, but it 
takes place slowly. In spite of the many formal comity plans 
there is actually keen competition between denominations in most 
communities. Equally sharp is the rivalry between churches of 
the same communion where a downtown and a community insti¬ 
tution struggle for members within the same district. The minis¬ 
ters in the larger churches speak enthusiastically about the success 
of cooperation; those in smaller churches are more keenly aware 
of competition, for the struggle of their organizations to survive 
is more acute. Apparently cooperation within and between de¬ 
nominations is on the increase but is not as yet an unqualified 
reality. 

Ministers in city after city who write about the good spirit 
shown by some of the other churches mention the bitterness of 
the conflict between the liberal and the fundamentalist churches. 
As many as ten pastors from a single city have reported this ten¬ 
sion, not only between certain denominational groups but also 
within local churches. In every commercial city which was 
studied there were evidences of such divisions among the forces of 
Protestantism. Consequently it must be noted that while some 
differences in doctrine and practice are being bridged and good 
will is growing among certain church groups, other gaps are 
widening. 


The Unchurched 

America is customarily referred to as a Christian nation, and 
such it is in much of its history and present organization; yet the 
statistics presented by the Census of Religious Bodies belie the 
statement. According to these data approximately half of all 
the men and women and the young people thirteen years of age and 
over in the United States are without even nominal affiliation with 
any religious institution, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, or minor 
sectarian groups. The proportion of unchurched Americans is 
greatest in the Pacific coast states and lowest in the southeast, 
where the traditions of Protestantism are strong and it is the mode 


153 


The Church in the Commercial City 

to go to church. However, even casual study of the census ma¬ 
terials makes it clear that in every section of the nation, rural 
and urban alike, a sizable proportion of the citizenry is indifferent 
to organized religion or is for some other reason not reached by it.* 

The number of unchurched persons in any city or other area 
may be computed by subtracting from the total population 
thirteen years of age or over in the year of the United States Re¬ 
ligious Census (1936), the number of persons thirteen years of age 
and over who are reported as “ churched,” i.e., who are claimed as 
members by the various local religious societies in their report 
to the Bureau of the Census. Children under thirteen years of 
age are included in the census in a separate classification; but in 
determining the number of unchurched more accurate results 
can be secured by leaving these out of consideration, since in some 
communions, as the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and Episco¬ 
palian, all baptized children are included as members, whereas in 
other denominations, as the Baptist and Congregational, the child 
is not counted as a member until he formally joins the church 
on his own initiative (usually at adolescence). Therefore, while 
in a given city one-quarter of the total reported Catholic mem¬ 
bership may be under thirteen years of age, practically none of the 
Baptist members will be in that age group. Nevertheless a local 
Baptist church may be serving its children as effectively as the 
Catholic. The elimination of all children from consideration puts 
the statistics on a more comparable basis. In this study, unless 
otherwise designated, all figures concerning the number of 
churched or unchurched refer to persons thirteen years of age and 
over. These are sometimes denominated “ adult members.” In 

* Religious workers may contend that many persons who are constituents 
of their churches are not included in such a census enumeration and that there¬ 
fore the number of unchurched is smaller than the figures would indicate. On 
the other hand, countless Americans who are nominally members of religious 
societies are not in any appreciable way influenced by them. Further, detailed 
study of membership rolls has revealed that in many cases the same person is 
included on the membership lists of two or more churches. Since these and 
similar discrepancies tend to counterbalance each other, the United States census 
figures may be taken as being reasonably accurate. 


154 


City and Church in Transition 

commercial cities, as judged by the samples studied, approximately 
50 per cent of the adult population is unchurched. 

Having determined the number of unchurched persons in a 
given city the further question arises: Who are they ? A knowl¬ 
edge of the traditions, habits, and present attitudes of the various 
population elements (cultural, national, or racial) in a local city 
gives a basis for many reasonable estimates and predictions. Such 
conclusions, however, need to be further checked by methods 
which give more definitive information. The first of these is the in¬ 
terview and case study method. Ordinarily this would be used in 
connection with a house-to-house canvass or a community survey. 
By means of such interviews one may discover in detail who are 
the unchurched and what their particular needs and interests are.* 
The second method employs the device of the population pyr¬ 
amid.f The pyramid (based on the United States census) present¬ 
ing the age and sex distribution of all the people in the city or the 
local ward $ can be compared with corresponding pyramids which 
show the age and sex distribution of church members and of those 
enrolled in the church school. Such comparison will show which 
groups are not being served. For example, if in one area, where ac¬ 
cording to the census many young people live, the pyramids of the 
local churches account for proportionately few young people, an 
undue number in this age group would evidently be unchurched. 
Similarly in a city where there are 10 per cent more males than 
females, but in which the churches are serving fewer males than 
females, it is obvious that there is an unusually large proportion 
of unchurched males. In this way the population pyramid device 
which is designed primarily to aid in the analysis of population 
composition may be employed to indicate which age and sex 
groups are being neglected by the local church. If the pyramids 
for the churches and the city should happen to be the same, it 
would indicate that the 40 or 50 per cent discovered to be un- 

* Cf. pp. 261 ff. 

t Cf. Appendix III. 

t Certain data, as age and sex distribution, are available for most cities of 
fifty thousand or more on the basis of wards or assembly districts. 


The Church in the Commercial City 155 

churched were evenly distributed between the sexes and over all 
age groups. Such a coincidence, however, is not likely to occur. 

The accompanying chart shows the population pyramids for 
a church which until recently maintained a bilingual program. 
To the left is the pyramid showing the age and sex distribution 
for the entire city. This constitutes the norm by which the church 
and its activities may be judged. At the center is the diagram 
presenting the age-sex distribution of persons enrolled in the 
church school, while to the right is the pyramid for the member¬ 
ship. Even cursory inspection of the latter will show that there 
is a disproportionate number of members over thirty-five years of 
age; the excess of those over forty-five is even more marked. Un¬ 
less young people are received into this church it is obvious that 
there will be few to carry on the work of the organization in 
another twenty years. Many children attend the church school 
but most of them drop out between the ages of fifteen and twenty, 
and do not transfer their loyalty to the church. It is also evident 
that there is a disproportionately large number of women or, 
conversely, too few men, in the church and church school. Within 
the city’s population there are more men than women. 

A study of the cultural backgrounds and standards of the people 
in the commercial city does not indicate that there is any marked 
difference between the churched and the unchurched. Those with¬ 
out religious affiliation do not seem to stand in sharp contrast, 
either racially or economically, with those who are church mem¬ 
bers. The reasons given for lack of interest in the religious pro¬ 
gram are many and varied. The majority of those without affilia¬ 
tion are not antichurch but rather are indifferent and consider 
themselves too busy with other interests and activities. In any 
case, approximately one-half of the adults have not been effectively 
reached or held by organized religion. Thousands of people in 
any commercial city, men and women, young and old, are more or 
less nonchalant concerning the claims and the value of the religious 
fellowship. 

In commercial cities, as well as in other urban types, there are 


CHART I 


SAMPLE POPULATION PYRAMIDS 
FOR A CHURCH WITH A BILINGUAL BACKGROUND 
SHOWING AGE AND SEX DISTRIBUTION 

By Per Cent 


AGE AND SEX DISTRIBUTION 


CITY CHURCH SCHOOL 

POPULATION MEMBERSHIP 

1930 J93? 


CHURCH 

MEMBERSHIP 

\W 



MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE 










i57 


The Church in the Commercial City 

uniformly more unchurched males than females. This statement 
is supported by a study of the membership pyramids of many 
churches * and also by an analysis of the Religious Census, which 
shows clearly that organized religion has been more successful in 
reaching women than men. There are approximately 25 per cent 
more female than male members in religious societies, even though 
the sexes are practically balanced in the total population. The 
only major denomination which reverses this pattern is the Church 
of the Latter-day Saints. The Roman Catholic and Lutheran 
churches have proportionately more male adherents than most 
religious groups, because of their hold on their people, their em¬ 
phasis on childhood training and on family participation, and the 
fact that there are many foreign-born (dominantly male) in their 
membership. While, then, there are many unchurched women, 
the distressingly large number of unchurched men, particularly in 
Protestant denominations, must be taken into account if any 
effort is made by religious societies to serve the whole of a local 
community. 

Analysis of the age distribution of church members demon¬ 
strates that there are more members over forty-five years of age 
and fewer between twenty and thirty-five than would be expected 
on the basis of the age spread of the general population. Fortu¬ 
nately this is not true for every individual church, since some have 
been unusually effective in reaching younger people. Here is, 
however, a problem which confronts all denominations; the future 
of the church as of any other institution is dependent on its re¬ 
ceiving a steady inflow of young life. 

* Cf. the sample church membership pyramids on pp. 156 and 284. 




10 


The Church in the Commercial City: 
Its Objectives and Problems 


T YPICAL is a dangerous word to employ, especially when 
we are dealing with human institutions, for no two per¬ 
sons, no two organizations are exactly alike; each one 
presents at least a few interesting variations. Nevertheless, after 
making detailed studies of their churches with scores of pastors 
and receiving frank and illuminating reports on hundreds of 
others * one cannot but be impressed with the repetition of a 
certain pattern which might almost be called the standard or 
typical church, and which is to be found in the various urban 
types but especially in the commercial city; neither is it restricted 
to one denomination. 

The Typical Church 

On a shaded street in an area of homes will be found the typical 
church. The building, whether of early or recent date, never 
seems exactly adequate for the demands which are made upon 
it; the stage in the recreation room was built without rear exits, 
the Sunday school classrooms, while separated from one another by 
partitions, are not soundproof, the acoustics in the auditorium are 
poor, the ladies’ parlor is badly in need of redecorating. Yet in 
spite of its deficiencies and the somewhat musty odor which char¬ 
acterizes the basement dining-room it is a familiar and beloved 
structure in which its people feel at home. The governing board 
* Cf. Appendix IV. 

158 



The Church in the Commercial City 159 

has its quota of interesting personalities: the cautious member 
who is sure that discretion is the better part of valor, the man who 
prides himself on saying exactly what he thinks “ even to the 
pastor himself,” the vivacious woman who always has some con¬ 
tribution, more or less valuable, to make to the discussion, the 
plain hard-working men and women who say little but carry 
their assignment of responsibilities faithfully. 

The church school, which meets at half-past nine each Sunday 
morning preceding the church service, is divided along the con¬ 
ventional lines for beginners, primaries, juniors, intermediates, 
and seniors, with one or two adult classes meeting simultaneously. 
The opening exercises for all from the intermediates up may be 
enlivened by an orchestra, and rousing hymns are sung under the 
supervision of a leader, the quality of whose voice does not reach 
the high pitch of his enthusiasm. The teaching staff is never 
entirely satisfactory to the church school board, in spite of inter¬ 
mittent efforts at teacher training. It is difficult to induce 
capable persons to accept classes, and it is equally difficult to 
secure tactfully the resignations of inept teachers. So the staff 
is a motley group, with members ranging from timid young girls 
who have been persuaded that it “ isn’t hard to teach primary chil¬ 
dren ” to a benevolently firm elderly gentleman who conducts the 
adult mixed class through the mysteries of Job and Daniel. There 
are winsome children who speak pieces on Children’s day; there 
are bad and troublesome junior boys who solve the school’s disci¬ 
pline problem by drifting away during the intermediate age (some 
of these are recaptured in the Boy Scout troop, which flourishes 
under the leadership of a serious young college student); there 
are senior boys and girls developing an interest in each other and 
romance. 

The young people’s society is the pride of the minister’s heart, 
for he has worked hard to create and strengthen it. The church 
board is distressed, however, by the fact that the young people do 
not stay after their meeting for the evening service, but instead 
drive off in the family cars, perhaps for petting parties. Never- 


160 City and Church in Transition 

theless they are a loyal crowd and will undertake almost any job 
the minister requests of them. A problem is created by a few of 
the members who do not realize that they are no longer young 
people and who annoy the latter by attending their meetings and 
attempting to assume leadership. 

The women’s auxiliary is the liveliest organization in the church, 
holding general meetings twice a month and social or sewing 
meetings for subgroups at least once a month. The president 
is determined to make the general sessions “ educational ” and 
persuades local and city leaders to address the women. The most 
important function of the society, if one would judge not by state¬ 
ment of purpose but by practice, is financial, and the church 
dinners and banquets which are prepared not only furnish the 
occasion for much sociability among the women but also swell 
their contributions to pay off the church debt. There are petty 
feuds and personal quarrels among them at times, but in crisis 
situations they pull together and give an assuring aspect of soli¬ 
darity to the church. It is a matter of comment that fewer men 
attend services than women. An effort to interest more men in the 
church has resulted in the establishment of a men’s club, which 
holds meetings spasmodically. These are moderately successful, 
but it is noticeable that on “ ladies’ nights ” the attendance of men 
is much greater. 

The worship service on Sunday mornings is a semi-dignified 
occasion. The sanctuary is not particularly conducive to a spirit 
of reverence; it is essentially an auditorium, with bright direct 
lighting and large colored windows conspicuously dedicated to the 
memory of deceased benefactors. There is a general rustling and 
whispering as members enter, greet their friends and impart bits 
of information to their neighbors a pew or two forward. This is 
covered fairly well by the organ music, but is disconcerting when 
the organist pauses between selections. A last-minute announce¬ 
ment of the foreign missionary meeting is handed to the minister 
during the singing of the first hymn and is included by him in the 
announcement period, which effectively breaks the unity of the 


The Church in the Commercial City 161 

service. The volunteer choir sings an anthem with a pleasing 
degree of accuracy and feeling, and an offertory solo is executed 
by the favorite soprano. The sermon is rather long and its outline 
is somewhat vague; but the preacher has lived earnestly and 
suffered deeply, and his illustrations bring salutary tears to the 
eyes of his listeners. Many thank him with evident sincerity at 
the close, and go home from this effective though technically im¬ 
perfect service with a determination to lead more Christlike lives. 
The typical church. One is sometimes alarmed that it accom¬ 
plishes so little, and again amazed that it contributes so much to 
the lives and souls of people. 

The Objectives of the Church 

There is a definite relation between the goal which one seeks 
and the methods to be employed in attaining it. Perhaps the 
differences in organization, work, and effectiveness among 
churches in the local community are due in part to the marked 
contrasts in the hopes and expectations of the pastors, for a person 
does not ordinarily achieve one goal while struggling toward an¬ 
other. An analysis of the comments of sixty-three ministers serv¬ 
ing nine denominations in commercial cities proved helpful in 
discovering not only the dominant interests of the pastors but 
also the particular elements which were emphasized in the pro¬ 
gram of the local church. 

A few of these men were frankly baffled, and one or two appeared 
discouraged by the many intricate problems, the tensions and 
conflicts which exist within their own churches and also in the 
relationship between church and community, the near-poverty and 
economic insecurity imposed by their low income, and the un¬ 
certainty of the local institution’s future. However, these were 
only a small minority. The replies of the large majority, in this 
as in other types of city, manifested assurance and conviction. 
Though some of the writers described their objectives in rather 
vague and conventional terms, many showed clarity of purpose, 
awareness of the tasks at hand, and a zestful spirit in their work. 


162 


City and Church in Transition 

Not a few described with a measure of pride some current achieve¬ 
ment or gave voice to an optimistic view of the future. They rec¬ 
ognized the complexity of the social situation and had a clear 
conception of the various functions which the church may be 
expected to perform and of its place in community life. 

For about a fourth of the ministers the church has a single ob¬ 
jective and this can be stated with admirable simplicity. Unfor¬ 
tunately these men differ sharply from one another as to what 
that one goal is. For some of them it is a matter of doctrinal 
belief: 

The true understanding that the church is the body of Christ 
through which by the word and sacraments, as the means of grace, 
men, women and children are to be brought into saving relationship 
with him and through which it is his purpose to usher in his kingdom. 
Not by education, culture and organizations of men. 

My chief objective is to reach and save sinners, to preach the 
gospel of salvation from sin. 

(i) Evangelization of the lost. (2) Bible study for the saved. 
(3) Student group Bible study. (4) Intensive youth activity all 
age groups. 

My objective is to get people to Know the Word so as to believe 
in Christ’s Blood and Resurrection To Be Saved and Teach others. 
In 20 years there has gone out from this church 16 educated young 
people. 

t 

For others the objective is institutional or sectarian: 

My immediate task is to save the church which has been losing 
ground very rapidly. ... Its losses by death and removal have 
been serious. Its finances are chaotic. 

This need to “ get the church out of the red ” financially is men¬ 
tioned as a prime objective by many: 

We are operating under a mortgage foreclosure on our church and 
hence are obligated to give immediate attention to our financial 
obligations — and to this effort we add a program primarily to reach 
and teach our youth. 


The Church in the Commercial City 163 

For several the great aim is to increase attendance and secure par¬ 
ticipation in the program. One preacher succinctly and loyally 
names his objective as “ the whole program of my denomination.” 

Where ministers in commercial cities set up one sum mum bonum 
for their church, this proved to be either a matter of theological 
belief or institutional development. In cities of other types some 
gave primary emphasis to the community aspect of religion, the 
importance of serving the people in the local area whether mem¬ 
bers of the church or not, while others stressed chiefly what is re¬ 
ferred to as the social gospel, the application of the ethics of Jesus 
to specific current economic and social questions. This leads to 
intriguing speculation as to the influence of the type of community 
on the preaching interests of the minister. Perhaps the industrial 
city or suburb draws preachers with a “ socialized ” outlook; or 
possibly their social passion is heightened by the more acute eco¬ 
nomic struggle within such cities. 

One should not conclude that ministers serving commercial cities 
are uninterested in the community or in the Christian solution of 
social issues, for fully half of them evince concern for these mat¬ 
ters. However, when either is mentioned, it is always as one of 
many responsibilities confronting the church. Such recognition 
of the wide scope and variety of the church’s objectives would 
seem to imply a more balanced comprehension of the church’s 
function; this is also the more typical response. Characteristic 
of this balanced attitude are the following statements taken from 
the replies of several ministers: 

To maintain a warm and effective evangelistic program: to use the 
best educational methods; to reach, hold and train youth in Christlike 
attitudes: to devise means by which religious enthusiasm may ex¬ 
press itself in action. 

To guide and lead people into the Christ Way of Life individually 
and socially; to break down denominational barriers and serve the 
whole community; to be of service to all in special times of need. 

Conserve the youth of this section of the city. Develop Christian 
character which applies itself to individual and social problems. A 


164 City and Church in Transition 

major emphasis this month on (i) personal adequacy, (2) world 
peace. 

To help people pursue the Christlike Way of Life for themselves 
and for the social order, by means of worship, education, fellowship 
and service. 

A dignified, spiritual worship service; an efficient educational pro¬ 
gram; a warm and widespread social activity. 

The same concepts, and frequently even the same phraseology, 
crop up in the replies of ministers from widely separated com¬ 
munities and with obviously different training. 

For Whom Is the Program Designed? 

In response to the question: “ Is your program designed only 
for members, or are there elements which are designed for the 
people of the community, whether members or nonmembers ? ” 
almost a third of the replies indicated that the program was 
planned without much reference to general community interests 
or needs. Typical are the following responses: 

For members. 

For members alone. 

Only for members, but generally evangelical. 

Primarily for members; others welcome. 

For members and their families mainly. 

Just members primarily. 

In most of these cases, as well as in others where the program 
is nominally designed for the community, no specific items of com¬ 
munity interest were listed. All are welcome to attend the worship 
services and share in the program if they wish to, but it is only 
too plain that little effort is made to carry the work of the church 
to the nonmembers. One pastor states pathetically, “ Our pro¬ 
gram is designed for the entire community, but only members 
avail themselves.” 

A minister in another city, who also accepts the theory that the 


The Church in the Commercial City 165 

church should serve the community, writes, “ We try to make a 
community appeal.” This effort, however, does not seem to be 
particularly successful, for he adds: “ The industrial groups are 
not being reached by this church, although we try to make our 
program thoroughly democratic.” Perhaps this inability to reach 
the unchurched may be explained in part by the preacher’s 
statement of his objectives for his church: “ This very largely is a 
pulpit church, although we have a well organized church school 
under capable direction.” It would seem that this minister of a 
church of a thousand members recognizes the problem, but fails 
to see the connection between his present program and the con¬ 
tinuance of the problem. He reports further that his members 
“ do not take their membership vows very seriously with regard 
to attendance or support ” and “ the poorer classes, of which there 
are many, remain unreached.” 

Frequently the sole item other than the conventional services 
of the church (worship and religious education) which is listed 
by the pastor as a means of community contact and service is the 
Boy Scout troop. Other favored vehicles for community service 
mentioned by many pastors are the daily vacation Bible school, 
young people’s program and parties, men’s brotherhoods, and 
women’s auxiliaries. Though the majority of religious organiza¬ 
tions make some effort to reach the unchurched in their com¬ 
munities, it is only one out of three which manifests a conscious 
and determined purpose to serve the community as such. The 
underlying spirit of some of these latter churches is well illustrated 
by the response of the pastor in a large downtown Lutheran 
church: 

The needy children are ministered to through different organiza¬ 
tions. We cooperate with the colored people and Jewish folks in 
their work. A splendid spirit of cooperation exists between Catholics 
and above groups and ours, for attending to every need in the heart 
of this city. . . . This church was given up as hopeless eleven years 
ago and without boasting has risen to one of the outstanding churches 
of the state, all because an earnest attempt has been made to meet 
every human need. 


i66 


City and Church in Transition 

The varied program of a Congregational church in the same city 
contains the following elements: 

Church services (average attendance 500); church school (600); 
young people’s societies (75); recreational program (100); Boy 
Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cubs, Brownies (about 100); social activities 
(suppers, parties) women’s association (500). 

In another church different features are emphasized: 

Dramatic club. Classes in special religious education. Church 
night and fellowship evenings — food, moving pictures, fun. Boy 
Scouts, Girl Scouts. 

A few churches have a bilingual program for small and 
otherwise unchurched foreign-language groups. Several have es¬ 
tablished missions in underprivileged sections of the city. One 
reported that services are held for deaf-mutes; an occasional 
church specializes in “ training institutes,” adult educational or 
teacher training programs. The recreational program is empha¬ 
sized by a number; one sizable church reports that over two thou¬ 
sand persons are served by its gymnasium. Others sponsor basket¬ 
ball teams, picnic parties and outdoor programs, while some 
attract nonmembers through dramatic activities and play-produc¬ 
ing groups. A “ community club ” promoted by another church de¬ 
votes its attention to local civic betterment, creating public opinion 
for the improvement of school facilities, streets, lighting, and so 
forth. Three of the churches which reported from commercial 
cities reach a wider constituency through the broadcasting of 
Sunday morning services. 

Social work for underprivileged groups engages the serious at¬ 
tention of several of the churches, whose object is not primarily 
to recruit new members but rather to meet basic human 
needs. One institution presents a “ charity show ” in which com¬ 
munity groups participate, the proceeds being used for local proj¬ 
ects. Another collects and distributes clothing and supplies food 
in emergencies which cannot be immediately met through the 


The Church in the Commercial City 167 

regular, slow moving public agencies. A third type of service 
involves the operation of a clinic for the physical examination of 
the children in the neighborhood before the opening of school in 
the autumn. 

Inevitably, and also properly, major attention is given to the 
varied religious and social needs of the members. For them, 
services must be held, the building redecorated, funds raised, and 
leadership provided. There are a hundred and one demands on 
a minister’s time. As one pastor states, “ We try to reach the com¬ 
munity [but] the field is large and I cannot cover it thoroughly.” 
Yet if the church aims to become an increasingly effective agency 
within a local community it will reach out beyond its own mem¬ 
bership, contacting new persons and enlarging the scope of its 
service. Unless it can do this the institution itself will have 
difficulty in becoming more than a sectarian group. Not only for 
the sake of the institution but also to preserve the values which 
the church avowedly represents it is necessary that an obligation 
to serve the community be recognized. 

Problems within the Local Church 

A discussion of all the problems which may arise in a local con¬ 
gregation is beyond the scope of the present study. Only those 
particular difficulties which appear most often in urban churches 
and have been repeatedly mentioned by different ministers can be 
noted. These center around the building up of a congregation, 
the discovery of new members, the development of leadership, and 
the maintenance of loyalties. 

1. Few indeed are the churches in Mediopolis which do not 
suffer a dissipation of energies because of a scattered membership. 
Practically every minister in the city of Duluth bemoans the wide¬ 
spread distribution of his people. Whether the church be in the 
downtown section or located somewhere else along the shoestring 
city, the story is the same. Since members live at a distance it is 
not easy for them to attend services, particularly in cold winter 


i68 


City and Church in Transition 

weather, and it is even more difficult to persuade parents to send 
their children to the church school. The problem is similar in 
every city. A typical comment is: 

Inadequacy of attendance and effective educational ministry be¬ 
cause of distance of members from church and its central program. 

Ministers and laity may as well acquiesce in the mobility of 
population which is the primary cause of membership dispersion. 
It is an inevitable characteristic of a growing city. The central 
churches are most keenly aware of this handicap, although the 
spread of their membership also creates a problem for the other 
churches of the denomination.* 

As the old population drifts away, newcomers, frequently with 
a different cultural background and religious affiliation, begin to 
seep in: 

Shifting population, a downtown church now with members far 
away. . . . Catholics settling around a church and school of their 
own and property becoming of a rental type. 

A problem of this nature can be avoided or intelligently met only 
through foresight and the development of a carefully planned pro¬ 
gram, based on a study of population movements of the past and 
a knowledge of probable trends for the next twenty-five years. 
This study and program planning, however, cannot be carried on 
with maximum efficiency by a single church, or for that matter by 
a single denomination. 

2. Another problem, closely related to the high mobility rate of 
Mediopolis, is the ever increasing number of “ inactive and non¬ 
resident ” members. The church has had no contact with the 
majority of these for years. It frequently happens that a local in¬ 
stitution can furnish addresses for only two-thirds of its reported 
membership. Where have the others gone ? Many urbanites do 
not remain long enough in one place to send roots down into the 
community life, and the church generally has not developed effec- 

* Cf. pp. i 7 S f- 


The Church in the Commercial City 169 

tive techniques for making a lasting spiritual contribution to tran¬ 
sients. Whether it will be able to do so remains to be seen. Cer¬ 
tainly the church is most effective in a stable community. Since 
the mobility rate is likely to rise rather than diminish, the church 
will do well to give thought to the problems presented by the tran¬ 
sient and the inactive member and by the transfer of membership, 
so that church loyalties are not lost in transit from one residence to 
another. Basic to the solution of these difficulties is the keeping of 
accurate records. 

3. Only in so far as a church continues to serve its own im¬ 
mediate community with effectiveness is its future assured. As 
its members move away several courses of action are open to the 
church: it may resign itself to an era of dwindling significance 
and eventual extinction, or it may move after its old members, 
or it may proceed to recruit new ones out of its own immediate 
neighborhood. Viewed abstractly, the latter is the course which 
most Christians will say a church should follow. However when 
confronted with the concrete case of their own church the tendency 
is for both minister and laymen to struggle to retain the tradi¬ 
tional atmosphere and loyalties. The older members, many of 
whom have now moved from the community, continue to control 
the program, and the minister spends much time to retain their 
financial support. This tends to isolate the church as a functioning 
society from the local community, to which it may become merely 
another building. One minister has stated the problem very 
frankly: 

We need to adapt our program to the needs of the “ unchurched ” 
in this vicinity rather than perpetuate the outmoded program of 
yesteryear. We are considered too much of a “ class church.” . . . 
The majority of the “ underprivileged ” and “ exploited ” pass us by 
as having no message suited to their particular needs, etc. 

The practice of social settlements in the congested areas of the 
larger cities may be illuminating. These organizations have dis¬ 
covered that it is advisable to keep their doors and program open 
to all who establish residence in the local community. The institu- 


170 City and Church in Transition 

tion refuses to be classified as Italian or Polish, but welcomes the 
members of each new nationality or race. Such a policy accounts 
for the long continued usefulness of Hull House in Chicago and 
the Henry Street Settlement in New York. A genuine settle¬ 
ment never seeks to follow those who have moved out to a better 
area, but assumes that its responsibility consists in remaining and 
serving the less privileged persons who take the place of the former 
residents. To be sure, the nonsectarian program of the settle¬ 
ment makes it easier to pursue such a policy. Further, the settle¬ 
ment is usually not bound by the racial prejudices which charac¬ 
terize many church members. It should be frankly recognized 
that unless a church is ready to welcome foreign-language groups 
or Negroes to its activities and membership it cannot hope to build 
itself permanently into the community in the lower-rent areas 
of the city. This problem of serving the local area is then closely 
tied to the social teachings and practices of the church and its 
solution involves the attitudes of the denomination as well as 
those of the membership. 

4. Increasingly ministers are becoming aware of the difficulty 
of recruiting new church members. It is a formidable task to 
bring people back into the church in their twenties who have been 
lost to it in their teens. Population pyramids for many congrega¬ 
tions show a deficiency in the number of people in the twenty to 
thirty-four year age grouping. This weakness in the church struc¬ 
ture can frequently be traced to ineffective religious leadership 
which failed to bring the young people into the church ten years 
previously. As yet this weakness is reflected simply in the number 
of church members. Ten years from now, however, it will result 
in an acute financial problem for the church, since the number of 
members in the most economically productive age will be un¬ 
usually small. The evil men do does live after them, as well as the 
good, but the effect may not be in full evidence for ten or twenty 
years. One pastor, aware of this problem, states: 

This church must have many more new members among young 
people, and the young people who already belong to the church must 


The Church in the Commercial City 171 

become active. I have reorganized the Epworth League and am 
working hard with the young married people’s group. 

5. The “ continuing ” young people’s society presents another 
interesting problem. When a strong Epworth League or Christian 
Endeavor is developed, its members find status in the leadership 
opportunities which it affords. As they grow older they continue 
to direct the organization, with the result that those who are two 
to five years younger are kept in a subordinate position and even¬ 
tually tend to drop out because of the lack of opportunity for self- 
expression. Some population pyramids show alternate five-year 
age groupings to be strong in a local church and the intervening 
ones weak. This state of affairs is directly traceable in a number 
of cases to the fact that one group of young people has continued its 
control of the society for five or more years beyond the time when 
it should be surrendered. When however in their later twenties 
these members acquire homes and families of their own they relax 
their grasp on the organization and a new group of young people 
again comes to the fore. In this manner a church may have a 
successful program actually serving those of high school and 
college age about five years out of every ten. Only far-sighted 
leadership can prevent this fundamental weakness in church or¬ 
ganization. 

6. In the majority of churches there are proportionately few 
men in the membership; commonly the women are twice as nu¬ 
merous. In two large churches recently studied approximately 
three times as many women as men belonged to the organization. 
Yet there are ordinarily as many males as females in the com¬ 
munity. This means that an important segment of society is 
being neglected by the church — a fact which may have a bearing 
on its financial difficulties. The population pyramid showing the 
sex and age distribution of the membership is the device which will 
best reveal what the actual situation is; it will serve as a clinical 
thermometer. An interesting discovery has been that where men 
(considering the differences in available time) are as active as 
women in a church there will be about as many boys as girls being 


172 


City and Church in Transition 

received into church membership. Where this is not true the loss 
of boys from the church school in their early teens tends to be 
greater, there are proportionately fewer accessions to membership, 
and the tradition grows up that the church is a woman’s affair. 
Here is a neat problem in social psychology for ministers, religious 
educators and laymen. 

7. Related to the foregoing problem is the question of re¬ 
cruiting leadership. Leadership traits are present in small chil¬ 
dren as well as in adults and skilled counselors have a golden oppor¬ 
tunity of freeing them from a feeling of inferiority and aiding them 
to acquire selfhood, poise, initiative, and the satisfactions which 
come from creative work. The minister and his close associates 
would do well to keep in mind that the future of the church, twenty 
to forty years from now, is being shaped by them in the junior 
and intermediate departments. This is one reason why the church 
school is important; if the work with children is not properly 
conducted there may be a dearth of adult leadership in later years. 
“ In first church, there are too few men and women with any 
leadership ability. . . Many an adult, even over fifty, has 
as yet undiscovered leadership abilities which the minister can 
evoke by judicious suggestions and by opening up new but not 
too difficult opportunities for service. 

8. Another problem confronting the churches of the commercial 
city has the twofold aspect of lack of pride in the local church 
and lack of loyalty to it. Such an attitude on the part of members 
is readily understandable in Salt Lake City, where most Prot¬ 
estant groups are puny and without status in the community; but 
the attitude is found elsewhere. Ministers report that “ too many 
outside activities distract and divide attention ”; there is a “ lack 
of cohesion ” in the membership. They earnestly hope their 
people will “ recover a vital sense of Christian fellowship and joy.” 
Catholic priests and Jewish rabbis are as much perplexed by the in¬ 
difference of their flock as Protestant ministers. One Roman 
Catholic priest remarked: “ A good many of my people come to 


173 


The Church in the Commercial City 

church only twice, and they are carried both times — for baptism 
and for burial.” 

In a world which is becoming rapidly more complex and where 
organizations are multiplying, any given institution tends to have 
a diminishing influence on the thought-life of its adherents. To 
overcome this handicap it will be necessary for the church to speak 
with an authority which arises out of its ability to meet the basic 
longings of puzzled and distracted men and women. Assertion of 
the importance of the church is not enough. In the eyes of the 
average citizen the church can justify itself as a unique institu¬ 
tion, deserving of loyal support, only if in program as well as in 
theory it assists people to live the good life and to feel at home in 
the universe. 

The poor man, cheated of opportunities and economically in¬ 
secure, and the rich man, to whom most doors are open, are alike 
difficult for the church to reach. As the pastor of one wealthy 
congregation has stated: 

Our section of the city, possessing considerable wealth, is less 
interested in the religious life than less favored sections of the city. 
Sunday is a day for golf and long trips to the country. It is hard 
to stir these people to experience a vital Christian faith. 

Perhaps an increasing measure of equity and brotherhood be¬ 
tween churches and between men might be to the advantage of all. 
The commercial city is fortunate in that fewer of its citizens are 
either exceedingly poor or exceedingly rich than is the case in 
any other urban type. In this as in other respects it is the median 
city standing midway between the industrial and residential sub¬ 
urbs, and hence affords a distinctive opportunity for the church. 

9. A final but very vocal plaint of the clergy of Mediopolis 
concerns the ever present financial struggle. Building debts, main¬ 
tenance costs, and current expense budgets are apparently a con¬ 
stant vexation which usurps an undue proportion of the minister’s 
time and energy. There is much evidence that churches with 
a heavy debt lose members to other institutions which are pos- 


174 


City and Church in Transition 

sessed of greater financial security. Some of these persons leave 
because they cannot, and others because they will not, contribute 
the sizable amounts expected in such a situation. It may be added 
that where debts are high the benevolence budget fares badly. 

When in the booming ’twenties a leading church of one denom¬ 
ination erected a beautiful sanctuary or an enlarged educational 
unit others near by followed suit, until now in city after city there 
is in the downtown district or some outlying section a cluster of 
five or six churches which have the common problem of staving 
off the mortgage holder. The following statement is illustrative: 

Most of the churches in our section of the city have difficult 
financial problems. We all have large new buildings. We are not 
in any sense overchurched and every church is strategically located, 
but the local community shies off from membership in churches 
facing such problems. 

A sizable debt is not the only obstacle to a well ordered financial 
program. The arduous task of raising the budget is an annual 
nightmare to practically every religious organization. It is even 
more trying in a depression period. Then the church, a voluntary 
association, inevitably suffers financially and to a greater extent 
than the public school, which is supported by tax funds. Surpris¬ 
ing is the relative success with which the churches have weathered 
the economic storm. Some financial dilemmas are due to the 
fact that the church is not located within its proper area; others 
to unskilled leadership; still others to the basic difficulties of our 
present financial order. 

The perplexities of the local church are numerous and varied, 
and each takes on a unique aspect, colored as it is by the immediate 
situation. The solution of each problem must take into account 
the traditions, attitudes, prejudices, and economic status of the 
members and their attitude toward the church and its responsi¬ 
bility in the community. Also important are the attitudes of non¬ 
members in the community toward the church, as well as the skills 
and training of the minister and the stability of the denomination. 


The Church in the Commercial City 


i 7 S 


Tensions and Problems within the Denomination 

Each church has its own inner problems of personal and group 
adjustments, financial security, and relation to the community; 
in addition there is often lack of adjustment in the relationship 
between churches in the denomination. Many tensions are created 
by the very fact of the growth of the city from a small, relatively 
simple organization to a highly complex clustering of distinct 
communities, each different from the others. As people move out 
from the central community they locate within what the pastor of 
a neighborhood church regards as his parish, but retain their 
membership downtown; this may create ill feeling between the 
two societies. Partly because of the interest each minister and 
each church board have in their own organization, partly because 
a city-wide as distinct from a parochial sense of Christian respon¬ 
sibility is slow in developing, partly because the forces of urban 
life are poorly understood, it is very difficult to deal effectively 
with the problem. In illustration of this point stand the con¬ 
trasting statements of ministers of the same denomination and 
city. The pastor of a central church protests: 

There is a strong tendency on the part of “ neighborhood churches ” 
to urge members from downtown churches, on purely geographical 
grounds, to unite with churches near them. The convenience of 
Sunday school is the entering wedge. 

The pastor of a small church near the edge of the city views the 
activity referred to above not as insidious but as logical and proper. 
His complaint is different: 

There is some competition from larger churches trying to pick the 
better families in these outlying sections to support their work. 

Similar witness comes from another city concerning the lack of 
understanding — or perhaps it might be called the subtle and 
usually unmentioned conflict — between central and surrounding 
churches. From the larger “ first ” church: 


176 City and Church in Transition 

Few of our members send or bring children to our church school. 
We feed the neighborhood churches in other sections. Members by 
the score identifying with other churches without notifying us. 

From the small neighborhood church: 

People are sending their children to our Sunday school while they 
go downtown to “ their own church.” . . . Competition between 
churches is noticeable, interdenominational as well as intra-denomina- 
tional competition. 

In each case this is a narrow and institutional rather than a 
city-wide point of view, and one which evidences the need for 
education of both ministers and laity in their wider responsibility 
and in the processes of social change which are at work in cities and 
churches. The downtown institutions may, if the city continues 
to grow, become missionary enterprises in their turn, serving a 
low-income population and becoming dependent for at least a 
portion of their support on what used to be the little neighborhood 
churches. In a city no one church can stand by itself. 

Linguistic population groupings have occasioned another type 
of difficulty. Each language has its adherents who desire a church 
where services will be conducted in their own tongue. Time was 
when these were more needed than they are at present. Changes 
have taken place. From one city comes the testimony: 

Yes, there is much overlapping. Overchurched in some sections. 
The Baptists are well located except in this locality where you have 
two Baptist churches only three blocks apart. Language has been 
the cause of this. 

A comparable situation is found in the Methodist communion 
where, in one city on the same street and within four blocks of one 
another, there are three Methodist Episcopal churches, one 
Swedish, one Norwegian, and one with an English-language back¬ 
ground. Each has its own membership, now scattered, each 
struggles for its own continuance. Since in the commercial city 
these language groups are ordinarily small they do not develop 
strong churches. Only in large cities or in those settled chiefly 


177 


The Church in the Commercial City 

by a particular nationality can there be adequate support for an 
impressive bilingual program. Further, the need for such in¬ 
stitutions is declining with each passing decade. Their existence 
frequently results in overchurching which, from the standpoint 
of the community, is especially unfortunate when the institutions 
are members of the same denomination and therefore do not offer 
the variety in worship and organizational forms presented by 
different communions. It serves as an illustration of the cultural 
lag, the unwillingness to adjust our institutions to changed social 
conditions. Here again a better knowledge of urban social forces 
would be an aid in intelligent planning. 

The Relation between the Denominations 

In response to the question, “ Are there any special religious 
problems in the city of which you are aware, such as competition 
between churches of different denominations ? ” very few ministers 
indicated that there was any overt conflict between such well es¬ 
tablished communions as the Baptist, Congregational, Methodist, 
and Presbyterian. The tension that does exist usually occurs not 
because of personal antagonism between the ministers or congrega¬ 
tions but because there are more religious societies within a given 
community than the people of the area can support adequately. 
For instance, in one section of a commercial city there are, within 
ten blocks of one another, the following ten churches: Baptist, 
Christian, Methodist, Presbyterian, Quaker (two separate insti¬ 
tutions), United Brethren, the Pentecostal Mission, a Four-Square 
church, and, last but not least vocal, a “ Jesus Only ” society. Here 
is obviously a case of overchurching which tends to force the 
pastors into a sectarian attitude and results in anemic religious or¬ 
ganizations ; these latter make small appeal to persons who are 
being freed from parochial and sectarian interests by school, 
business and social life. 

Common indeed is the plaint of ministers regarding tension 
between the more liberal and more conservative churches. In 
one city nine out of twelve ministers mentioned this type of strife: 


178 City and Church in Transition 

I find a real prevalent division of the churches into two extremes, 
a competition too strong and bitter. 

An unfortunate cleavage between liberals and fundamentalists 
largely accentuated by the latter and in polemic fashion. 

In city after city the testimony is the same. The sectarian funda¬ 
mentalist group appears to be relatively stronger in the cities 
(commercial, industrial, and resort) which have hinterlands of 
their own than in either type of suburban city. Possibly this is 
because the “ independent ” city is more closely tied to the rural 
population, and therefore tends to be more conservative in its re¬ 
ligious and also in its political life. In the sophisticated atmos¬ 
phere of the residential suburb fundamentalism is less robust. 

An interesting reaction to this tension over matters of doctrine 
in Mediopolis is made by the pastor of a strong church in a tradi¬ 
tionally conservative denomination: 

The ministers of our denomination work together splendidly, in my 
opinion, and the spirit in our local ministers’ association is especially 
good. Such churches as the Four-Square Gospel, Open Bible, etc., of 
course do not cooperate with us and do a great deal of proselyting, 
but I have always felt personally that such churches were a blessing 
in disguise to the other churches. Our disgruntled members, who are 
very liable to accuse us of not “ preaching the gospel ” and who are 
very often stormy petrels in our churches go to these other churches 
and find genuine satisfaction in their ministry. 

Some ministers in other cities are of a similar opinion, although 
the majority of their colleagues, both liberal and conservative, 
wring their hands over this cleavage in Christendom. 

However, it is a cause for satisfaction that cooperation is 
definitely on the increase among many denominations. Fre¬ 
quently the informal evidences of this spirit of brotherhood are 
as significant as the actual organization of a ministerial association. 
An illustration of this genuine good will comes from a midwestern 
city where a Methodist pastor who had been serving one church 
for fifteen years became critically ill. The rector of the downtown 


The Church in the Commercial City 179 

Episcopal church planned an afternoon service of prayer for his re¬ 
covery, inviting the members of his own and also of the Methodist 
church to attend; over a hundred were present for the beautiful 
service. In the Presbyterian, United Brethren, Congregational, 
and other churches, similar services were held during the course 
of this minister’s long and serious illness. A mass for his recovery 
was said in a local Catholic college. Here is evidence of the grow¬ 
ing spirit of good will. Basic human problems are very much 
alike, regardless of the denomination to which people belong; 
where there can be sharing in times of sickness, suffering, and 
strain, or in confronting community problems of social better¬ 
ment, churches learn to work unitedly and in that process they 
discover how much they have in common. In this spirit one 
minister wrote: 

This is one city where we forget our little differences and center 
on our larger objective of making Christ’s work a reality, socially and 
spiritually. A strong, united effort and jront to meet human needs is 
the great passion of its leaders. 

In the majority of cities this cooperative attitude has resulted 
in the formation of interdenominational organizations such as the 
Inter-religious Goodwill Association in El Paso and the Council of 
Churches in Wichita. In the latter, 

the local council of churches with monthly meetings has the interest, 
support and membership of practically all Protestant denominations. 
There is also a wonderful program of religious education with a full¬ 
time leader in the council. A committee on religious education works 
with the city board of education. 

Such organizations, while not including every pastor and church, 
do embrace those who have learned to be more or less tolerant of 
differences in doctrine and emphasis. An exception to the general 
pattern is the association in one city which is organized on a 
creedal basis and consequently excludes the more liberal ministers. 
Unfortunately it is a far cry from the development of such inter- 


180 City and Church in Transition 

church societies to the building of a united Christian approach 
which will be effective in preventing the overchurching of certain 
areas and the neglect of others. Nevertheless progress is being 
made even on this delicate and ultimate test of interchurch toler¬ 
ance and good will. 


IUIIIIIIIIIIIIUIIIIIW 


II 


The Church in the Industrial City 

A S INDUSTRY begins to dominate the work life of a city 
a slow metamorphosis in the general social pattern takes 
. place. The community which once earned its living 
through trade with its rural and small-town hinterland outgrows 
many of the ties which bind it to the region round about and be¬ 
comes a city of the world. Its products are on display in sales¬ 
rooms a thousand miles removed. Such development stimulates 
population growth and measurably affects social and cultural 
organization. 

How Industry Affects the City and the Church 

Industry tends to select and shape the city’s population. In¬ 
dustrial workers do not enjoy the social status which is associated 
with the professions, civil service, trade or clerical occupations. 
The native white American, greatly influenced as he is by the 
standards of his class, strives to obtain a white-collar job. In¬ 
dustry which frequently pays low wages is avoided because it is 
commonly viewed by the American high school graduate as a blind 
alley occupation and he, with success stories fresh in mind, wants 
employment where he can climb the ladder rapidly. 

These various influences, together with the lower status and 
humbler expectations of the foreign-born and their children or 
of the Negroes, tend to bring the latter peoples into industrial 
cities to seize the work opportunities. However, while the Italians 
and the Czechs, the Poles and the Slavs, the Negroes and the 
Mexicans flock to such centers they do not become the chief 

181 



182 


City and Church in Transition 

population groups, as they may in an industrial suburb, for the 
industrial city continues to perform many commercial and pro¬ 
fessional functions for its hinterland; it is still an “ independent ” 
city, with a wider variety of occupational opportunities and eco¬ 
nomic classes than are to be found in a suburb. Still maintaining 
contact with its hinterland it continues to attract rural Americans 
to its shops and mills, as an industrial suburb does not. 

Nevertheless, the city’s population will include a large number 
of foreign-born whose presence influences the church just as it 
does other institutions. The larger the proportion coming from 
Catholic lands the stronger is the Roman Catholic Church and the 
weaker the Protestant. Most industrial cities started out as com¬ 
mercial centers, with the traditional Protestant religious back¬ 
ground. The rapid influx of new population groups brought some 
change to the picture. The newcomers settled in the lower rent 
areas around the downtown district, and the old “ first ” churches 
gradually became conscious of the fact that their members were 
moving away to higher-rent areas, while they themselves were left 
marooned in the midst of a Catholic, Jewish, or Negro Protestant 
population. Not only were these population groups of a different 
religious background, but they also occupied a lower economic 
status; this meant that even if the central churches should wish 
to serve the local community they could do so only on a missionary 
basis. Institutional and bilingual churches, less needed in com¬ 
mercial cities where these economic and racial groups are fewer 
and smaller, may be established to meet the new demands. 

The nature of the dominant industry will affect the life, pros¬ 
perity, and standards of a particular city. Scranton, which is 
dependent on the mining of coal, leans on an economically weak 
crutch, for coal mining is notoriously a sick industry. Though 
hourly rates of pay may be high there is much unemployment and 
annual earnings are low; the whole community suffers in conse¬ 
quence. Because coal mining is dangerous, dirty, and hard labor, 
immigrants of the first and second generation have been given 
almost a complete monopoly of the work; over 60 per cent of the 


The Church in the Industrial City 183 

entire population of Scranton is either foreign-born or of foreign 
parentage. Many of these people have come from the mining 
regions of Wales, but large contingents hail from Poland, Italy, 
Lithuania, Germany, Ireland, Russia, and Czechoslovakia. Hence 
it is not surprising that in Scranton more persons belong to the 
Roman Catholic Church than to all other denominations combined, 
although there are many strong Protestant institutions. All, 
Catholic and Protestant alike, are influenced by the insecurity of 
the masses in Scranton. A large proportion of the ministers men¬ 
tion unemployment as a major problem. 

Binghamton presents a different picture. While it may almost 
be called a one-industry town its product (shoes) finds a market 
in depression as in prosperity. Consequently suffering has been 
less acute and the churches have had better financial support than 
in Scranton. The lumber industry of Tacoma, seasonal as it is and 
employing migratory workers, influences the program of many 
churches in that city. The situation is different in Altoona, which 
is more exclusively dependent on railroading than any other city 
of its size in the United States. A railroad demands stability of 
its employees. However, the churches are handicapped by the 
fact that hours of work are irregular; it is more difficult to get men 
to assume any stated responsibility in the church, and, as one 
pastor has remarked, the railroad “ by withdrawing departments 
to Philadelphia, is helping to reduce or destroy what has been built 
up.” One-industry towns always run such a risk. 

One of the characteristics of the industrial center is that in¬ 
security is increased in proportion to the dependence of the city 
on mills and factories for employment. Such establishments hire 
more persons in a period of peak production and lay off more in 
slack times than is the case in other fields of work. If a city is 
dependent on heavy industries, economic insecurity is greater than 
where the mills produce consumer goods such as foodstuffs or shoes. 
Further, any diversification in manufacturing is also a hedge 
against economic collapse in a depression period. 


City and Church in Transition 


184 


The History and Status of the Church 
in Industrial Cities 

Industrial cities, while not so widespread as commercial cities, 
are found in various sections of the country and reflect the local 
geographical and cultural biases of their respective areas. These 
differences are illustrated by a brief account of organized religion 
in cities selected from three contrasting regions. The subsequent 
portion of the chapter will deal with those characteristics which 
are common to industrial cities. 

Binghamton is a thriving manufacturing city which, because 
of the nature of its products, managed to survive the depression 
with relatively few scars. Like much of the northeast, particu¬ 
larly where the Catholic Church is strong, Binghamton has a better 
church membership record than the nation as a whole, almost two- 
thirds of its adult inhabitants belonging to one of the city’s reli¬ 
gious organizations. Slightly under half of all who have some 
church affiliation are cared for by the Roman Catholic communion. 
About one in three of the remainder is a member of a Methodist 
church, while the chief preferences of the others are, in order, 
Presbyterian, Baptist, Jewish, Episcopalian. 

Most of the churches in Binghamton appear to be holding their 
ground; some are thriving. However, the ministers almost with¬ 
out exception are dismayed by the indifference of their own mem¬ 
bers and of the community in general. “ The grip of secular 
interest and materialism ” and “ the demands of schools, lodges, 
clubs, are so great ” that the church can secure little of their mem¬ 
bers’ time to aid them in spiritual development. Perhaps the 
relatively high degree of economic security enjoyed by the people 
of Binghamton, which permits a better standard of living, owner¬ 
ship of automobiles, membership in clubs and week ends in the 
country, has dulled the response of some to religion. Golf, the 
automobile, and the summer camp are thorns in the side of more 
than one minister who is striving to develop within his congrega- 


The Church in the Industrial City 185 

tion a feeling of unity, loyalty, and a desire to serve. One puts it 
succinctly. He finds in his members 

an unwillingness to inconvenience themselves for the church and the 
kingdom of God; worldliness (I don’t mean dancing, etc., which I 
regard with indifference), selfishness, material standards, refusal to 
apply Christianity to personal and social life. 

While he adds, “ This is by no means universal: we have many of 
the finest of Christians,” the problem is one which disturbs the 
majority of the ministers — a situation common to industrial 
cities but less evident in commercial centers. 

Of equal significance in the religious life of Binghamton is a 
deep cleavage which has been manifest particularly in the past few 
years. The religiously conservative and orthodox have become de¬ 
cidedly vocal. The tactics of these fundamentalists appear defi¬ 
nitely disruptive. They will not enter into fellowship with 
others who hold a more liberal point of view. Two schools to 
propagate “ the true faith ” have been established in adjoining 
Johnson City. One pastor describes the situation as follows: 

Two so-called Bible schools accept students with very low educa¬ 
tional standards, train them in a reactionary, juvenile and pictorial 
theology and send them out into churches, mostly Baptist. A number 
of other churches keep up a constant run of emotionalistic evangelism 
based on a narrow theology. The result is a division which cannot 
be bridged between two groups of the clergy, and consequently no 
cooperation of any kind between the churches represented by their 
ministers. ... On the whole, in my opinion, the interdenominational 
situation in Binghamton is only a degree above open controversy. 
This side of our church life is not a pleasant picture, but I believe 
it is a true estimate. 

Many of the churches of Binghamton are in a serious plight. Some 
have suffered from schisms in membership, others are stalemated 
in their program because of inner controversy. 

This has been especially acute among Baptists where the majority of 
the churches have withdrawn from the Baptist denomination to form 
a fundamentalistic body. 


i86 


City and Church in Transition 

While some denominations have not been directly affected by 
this emotional revivalistic movement, over two-thirds of all the 
pastors reporting indicated the serious effect which this tension is 
having either on their own membership or on the status of Chris¬ 
tianity in the eyes of the community. Where such strife exists 
it occupies the center of the religious stage, and the handling of 
other problems cannot be considered without reference to it. Yet 
it must be remembered that in spite of the conflict the majority 
of the churches continue to carry forward their regular programs 
of worship services, church school, personal ministry, and the 
administration of the sacraments. Some have developed a com¬ 
munity program to serve not simply their own members but also 
the underprivileged in the immediate neighborhood. However, 
judging by the replies of ministers, this is less characteristic of 
Binghamton than of other industrial cities. 

Winston-Salem differs from northern cities in its religious life 
just as it does in its population composition. The great tides of 
immigration which swept across the northern states from the post 
Civil War period until the years of the World War left the south 
practically untouched. Prior to that time the population of the 
United States was overwhelmingly Protestant, and so it still re¬ 
mains throughout the south. The southern religious and cultural 
traditions have assured the church a position of greater dominance 
than in the north. For example, in Winston-Salem there are as 
many officers and students in the Sunday schools as there are 
persons in the total population of the city under twenty years of 
age. 

Again in accordance with the pattern in the southern states there 
is a relatively high percentage of church membership, six out of 
ten adults having some religious affiliation, compared with five out 
of ten for the nation. As in Montgomery, the strongest families of 
churches are the Baptist and the Methodist, between them serving 
seventy-one of the city’s hundred twenty-seven churches and two- 
thirds of all the church members. These denominations thrive 
among colored folk as well as among whites. The Moravian 


The Church in the Industrial City 187 

Church, which has been closely linked with the city, especially 
in its early development, has its headquarters for the Southern 
Province in Winston-Salem. Third in point of membership, it 
has twelve churches, one being for colored members. Much of 
picturesqueness and religious renown is brought to the city by its 
colorful Easter service and its love feasts. 

Four out of every five holding church membership in Winston- 
Salem belong to a Baptist, a Methodist, or a Moravian church. 
There are, however, strong churches of other denominations; for 
example, the one Episcopal church which serves white people is an 
effective, well organized unit housed in an impressive Gothic 
structure. The non-Protestant religious organizations, including 
the Christian Science, Jewish and Roman Catholic groups, serve 
scarcely one per cent of the total population. In contrast with 
northern cities, Winston-Salem has only one Catholic church and 
one Jewish synagogue. 

Winston-Salem stands in happy contrast to Binghamton in the 
matter of theological controversy. Perhaps this is because there 
is a general theological conservatism which has not been disrupted 
to any marked extent, with the result that a peaceful relationship 
exists among the churches. 

Tacoma, located in the Pacific northwest, stands midway be¬ 
tween the solidly Protestant Winston-Salem and such cities as 
Binghamton or Scranton where one-half of the church members 
are in the Roman Catholic fold. Approximately one in four of 
Tacoma’s churched adults is Catholic. The leading Protestant 
denominations are Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Bap¬ 
tist. However, Tacoma, like most of the west coast cities, has a 
very low rate of membership, considerably less than half of the 
total adult population being churched. 

The large number of unchurched is due in part to what may be 
called the “ west coast ” influence. In the three Pacific coast states 
the mobility rate is high; good roads, good weather, and the largest 
per capita car ownership characterize the area. These make for 
a holiday mood and an unsettled attitude toward life and toward 


i88 


City and Church in Transition 

the community. People from the east find the spirit contagious 
when they arrive, and cast off many restraints, inhibitions, and 
feelings of obligation which marked their lives in the old home 
town. They recognize the value of the church but hesitate to 
assume responsibilities in a local organization. The result is that 
there are more unchurched people in the west than anywhere else 
in the nation. 

Another factor helps to explain the low rate of church member¬ 
ship. This territory is not many decades removed from the pioneer 
stage, which is characterized by a heavy preponderance of adult 
males in the population and by a spirit of unconventionality which 
gives scant heed to the “ sky pilot.” This situation is changing; 
the proportion of church members in the Tacoma population 
has more than doubled since 1906 and the likelihood is that the 
trend will continue as the city grows older and becomes more 
stable. However, this is still a critical problem for Tacoma 
ministers. 


Religion and the Community 

A small town has a certain unity of structure and interest, but 
a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants has contrasting areas 
which are in process of becoming more or less distinct and self- 
conscious communities, not only because of the differences in in¬ 
come level of the people who live in two adjacent districts but 
also because of the physical barriers which more or less effectively 
separate them. These barriers or community boundaries tend to 
be more clearly defined in industrial than in commercial cities, for 
every set of railroad tracks, every manufacturing plant, acts as 
a wall to separate neighboring communities. The larger number 
of such geographically divisive agents tends to accentuate com¬ 
munity consciousness; this in turn has a bearing on the program 
of the local church. 

Unlike the industrial suburb, which attracts chiefly people of the 
middle and lower middle working classes, the industrial city has 
place for considerable economic and cultural diversity. It has its 


The Church in the Industrial City 189 

poorer districts, which some refer to as the slums; but it also has 
“ better ” residential areas. While they may not as yet be distinct 
communities they perform much the same social function that the 
residential suburb does for the metropolis. There is also a greater 
variety of communities in industrial than in commercial cities. 
The extremes of poverty and wealth are more in evidence. The de¬ 
velopment of mills causes the workers from these plants to locate 
their homes near by in the more convenient and lower-rent areas. 
As the concentration of workers increases there is mounting pres¬ 
sure on dissimilar elements to withdraw from the neighborhood, 
and thus class and community consciousness are heightened. This 
presents a set of problems which one minister recognizes in his ef¬ 
fort to “ coordinate a group of young people representing wealthy, 
middle class, and very poor homes. ,, 

A natural result of this increased diversity among the com¬ 
munities of a city is that the churches themselves become more con¬ 
scious of their responsibility to the local area. Relatively little 
attention to the problems of the community was given in the re¬ 
ports of ministers in commercial cities; a change in emphasis 
was noticeable in the replies of pastors from industrial centers. 
While some, to be sure, when asked concerning problems in the 
local community, reported that there were “ none in particular,” 
almost half of them not only noted spiritual and other needs within 
the local area but also acknowledged the responsibility of their 
church to give assistance. 

Perhaps this heightened community consciousness of the pastors 
is at least in part a reaction to the evident indifference of the com¬ 
munity to organized religion. They are sensitive to the fact that 
the church is not accepted as an important institution in their 
communities simply on the basis of its years of service or its 
traditions. Indeed, as the ministers themselves say, “ the city is 
totally indifferent to the church ” and the basic problem is “ to get 
it to take the church seriously.” It would seem, judging by the 
replies, that the church has less status in the industrial than in 
the commercial city in spite of the fact that there are more church 


190 City and Church in Transition 

members reported, and that people appear to be more indifferent; 
and many of the ministers, no longer finding them coming for help, 
have resolved to go out to the people. 

Religious Objectives 

It is not surprising that there is a marked similarity between the 
hopes and plans of pastors in industrial and commercial cities. 
Here, as elsewhere, some formulate their objectives in simple, 
concise, conventional religious terminology: “We try to appeal 
both to our own and the unchurched by the simple preaching of 
the gospel,” or to “ edify the saved and save the lost.” Others 
have as their one objective the maintenance of their local institu¬ 
tion, keeping the machinery running. A few mention problems 
arising out of the work life of the people, but the majority are only 
vaguely aware of the increasing importance of industry. 

The most prominent difference between the stated objectives 
of ministers in industrial and in commercial cities is the stronger 
emphasis on the community life in the former type. A person 
analyzing responses from pastors in these two types of city could 
not fail to be impressed with this fact. A typical and well balanced 
statement of objectives is this: 

Deepen spiritual life of the church; bring to bear upon the com¬ 
munity the impact of the personality and message of Christ; make 
my people better citizens; give to as many as possible an opportunity 
to make a personal contribution to the life of the church. 

It is obvious that the increase of industry is bringing about a 
change not only in ecclesiastical objectives but also in program. 
This fact has an interesting bearing on a rather widely held theory 
that the church is essentially a rural institution which has been 
transplanted to the city environment, but which has as yet not been 
particularly successful in adjusting to it. Pastors in commercial 
cities do in the main seem to view their work in much the same 
light as ministers in small towns. For them the task is “ to care for 
the sheep,” conduct the regular services of the church, attend the 


The Church in the Industrial City 191 

sick, serve as religious counselors and mentors. With the waxing 
of industrial activity, the church, like the city, undergoes a change. 
Whether this is because industrial communities appear to be more 
indifferent to organized religion or because the ministers are more 
far-sighted is difficult to say; but that the pastors’ concern has 
broadened beyond the limits of their own flocks is clear. One 
pastor writes: 

I aim to create a miniature kingdom of God in the church and in 
the community; to create an atmosphere in which the principles of 
Christ’s teachings will grow not only in individual lives but in the 
corporate life of the community; to teach and preach the social as 
well as the individual gospel. 

Not every minister has such an outlook on his task, but this is 
typical of responses which have come from every industrial city. 
One person even suggested that 

some sections of the city could get along with half the ministers and 
twice as many workers to look after church schools, recreational and 
musical leadership and dramatics among the people. 

Alert religious leaders are anxious not only to encourage their own 
lay people to assume obligations in the community, such as partic¬ 
ipation in the community chest drive or service on the Y. M. C. A. 
board of directors, but also to teach them to understand and serve 
their “ inarticulate neighbors.” 

We wish to make the community know that notwithstanding the 
fact no membership is held in the church, as such, the people of the 
community should, and we expect it, call upon the minister and 
church people for any help needed; that we are anxious to minister 
to the adults and children. 

To serve both members and nonmembers in the community 
more effectively the program of the churches in industrial cities 
has been broadened to include a wide variety of activities rarely 
found in commercial city churches. Certain elements have been 
introduced to aid the underprivileged: nursery and kinder¬ 
garten schools to care for the children of working women; a class 


192 


City and Church in Transition 

in child care and hygiene for the benefit of untrained mothers; 
WPA classes giving courses in citizenship, Spanish, handicrafts; 
and general social welfare work among the needy. A few churches 
operate summer camps for boys and girls who could not otherwise 
enjoy a holiday in the open country. 

Plays, pageants, lectures, movies, organ recitals are designed 
to appeal to all groups, member or nonmember. One church has an 
orchestra which meets regularly, not for the edification of the 
neighbors but for the joy of self-expression. Another conducts an 
annual music festival. In a social program designed to appeal to 
all age and sex groups are other items: men’s community club, 
interdenominational mothers’ club, young ladies’ social club, bowl¬ 
ing league. Two churches with white memberships report conduct¬ 
ing club work for Negro boys in the neighborhood. Some make 
a practice of lending their sanctuary for the use of foreign-language 
groups (as Armenian, Italian, Welsh) or deaf-mutes for weekly or 
monthly services. To conduct such programs the churches are 
open more of the time, many every evening, and some throughout 
the whole day. Pastoral calling has extended to include hospitals, 
county homes, jails, and even industrial shops where noonday 
services are occasionally held. 

Another interesting development is the emphasis placed by 
many churches on “ personality adjustment.” The increased com¬ 
plexity and tensions associated with industrial society make this 
service more necessary. Pastors have taken courses in counsel¬ 
ing and mental health and have established office hours when 
they are available to men and women in the local community 
who come for advice or for reference to some professional agency 
better prepared to cope with their particular problem. Domestic 
counseling and forum groups discussing marital and parent-child 
relationships are becoming more common features of the program. 
One church conducts an annual course on courtship. 

This heightened emphasis on the community and its problems 
is also reflected in the increased concern evidenced by ministers 
over conditions of vice, intoxication and gambling. It is not sur- 


193 


The Church in the Industrial City 

prising that, considering the variety in population elements in in¬ 
dustrial cities — with the associated cultural differences — such 
community problems will arise. A city like Peoria, in which the 
distilling of whiskey is an important industry, will be particularly 
plagued by the presence of taverns and the concomitant evils of 
gambling and vice, as numerous ministers testify. While a few 
preachers deal with such an issue by insisting that “ our chief 
competitor is the devil and his agents,” the majority face it as a 
problem in community hygiene, which is capable of solution and 
which the church cannot afford to ignore. Unfortunately the 
membership does not always support its minister in such en¬ 
deavors : 

Various moral and social issues confront the city in which it would 
welcome the support of the church. My church does not cooperate. 

However, it is a specific objective of the majority of ministers to 
Christianize their community as well as its individual members. 

The Church Has Its Problems 

The difficulties and perplexities which plague the minister in 
the commercial city, such as raising the budget, are not foreign to 
his fellow worker in the more industrialized town; but the latter 
does have certain additional problems of his own. 

i. For example, the changing policies of industrial executives, 
expansion or contraction of local plants, and seasonal activity in 
the factories, cause the industrial city to have an even higher 
mobility rate than its commercial sister. A pastor in Winston- 
Salem refers to “ the floating class of people who come in and do 
factory work for a while, but soon go somewhere else.” The con¬ 
stant coming and going of people augments greatly the work of 
the pastor, tends to increase the financial problem because of a 
lessened sense of responsibility on the part of the foot-loose, and 
at the same time increases the difficulty of securing dependable lay 
leadership. 

The greater the mobility rate in the community the more impor- 


194 


City and Church in Transition 

tant is it that the church preserve continuity in its own organiza¬ 
tion through long-term pastorates. This, however, it usually fails 
to do, the average term of Methodist pastors in cities being three 
years. The records of other denominations are similar. 

The extraordinarily large turnover of pastors of the Protestant 
churches is a problem in the community, several leaving under clouds 
occasioned by disagreements with congregations. I am the senior 
pastor in this neighborhood, although I have been here less than four 
years. 

A long-time view of this constant shifting of ministers is startling. 
In a study of the seven churches of one denomination in a partic¬ 
ular city it was found that at least one change of pastors occurred 
every single year from 1890 to the present, with the single excep¬ 
tion of the year 1931. 

2. The heightened mobility rate tends to increase rather than 
diminish the tension between the downtown and community 
churches in the same denomination. The central churches are 
forced to reach out farther for their membership, due to the fact 
that there has been a more complete withdrawal of the older 
population from the downtown areas, these groups being replaced, 
if at all, by a non-Protestant population. As one minister states 
it: “ We have no local community but are surrounded by business.” 
Another complains: 

We have to persuade people to come downtown two or three miles 
away from a residential section in which there are three other Presby¬ 
terian churches. 

A typical reply from the church on the periphery protests against 

the utter disregard which other churches have of the natural bound¬ 
aries of the parish of this church. 

A similar response from another city is: 

Our small Methodist churches are overshadowed by the program of 
the large church in the center of the city, which has three thousand 
members and a large staff of employed workers. 


195 


The Church in the Industrial City 

3. These same forces of change tend to increase the number 
of Catholics and other non-Protestants, especially in northern 
cities. The older population, chiefly affiliated with various Prot¬ 
estant denominations, maintains its downtown churches but has 
moved away from the surrounding areas which are pre-empted 
increasingly by industry. These less desirable sections are oc¬ 
cupied by new population groups which bring with them their own 
cultural institutions, such as the Roman Catholic or Greek Ortho¬ 
dox church or the Jewish synagogue. In this section also will 
be found some bilingual Protestant churches. These exist for 
nationalistic as well as religious reasons. As one pastor stated: 
“We seek to arouse community responsibility as well as the 
natural language feeling.” The passage of the years and the 
withdrawal of oncoming generations to English-speaking churches 
leave bilingual institutions with “ quite a number of very old 
folk.” An analysis of the age distribution of one such congrega¬ 
tion showed that 30 per cent of the total membership was between 
the ages of forty-five and fifty-four (about three times normal ac¬ 
cording to the age distribution of the city’s population) and 12 per 
cent more were over fifty-five. In another church, with a 
German background, 55 per cent of the membership is forty-five 
years of age or over, while in the city only 2 5 per cent of the popu¬ 
lation is in this age group.* Obviously little success has been 
achieved in such churches in winning the loyalty of the young 
people, who disagreed with the national and language emphasis 
of their elders and therefore joined other congregations. The 
conventional reply from such an institution is, “ Serving only 
members.” With the demise of its present following the church 
will likewise cease to be, unless there is in the near future a sharp 
change in policy and program. 

4. A few ministers are aware of the dominance of older people 
in their congregations and recognize the need of “ enlisting the 
interest of those ranging in age from twenty-five to forty.” Cog¬ 
nizance of this problem has influenced the development of their 

* CL the population pyramids on p. 156. 


196 City and Church in Transition 

programs. One suggests “ transferring the leadership into 
younger hands ” that the young people may be built into the life 
of the church and learn to carry their share of the responsibility. 
Closely allied is the problem presented by the scarcity of men in 
the church membership. “ The number of husbands that cannot 
be reached is large; wives are members.” A pastor of a church on 
the edge of Tacoma describes his greatest problem in relation to 
church membership as 

getting more men to attend church. Many of the men are in the 
city at work on weekdays, and build and fix up their homes on Sunday. 

However, this problem begins with the boys. In most churches 
more girls than boys become members, and the institution is 
dominantly female from the ten-year age level on. Doubtless the 
fact that fewer boys join is due in part to their fathers’ indifference. 
These lads in turn, lacking in habits of church attendance, when 
they grow up will influence their own children in similar manner. 
An analysis of the population pyramid for a medium-sized church 
in an industrial city illustrates this female bias. Out of a total 
membership of 298, 200 are women and girls; of these 141 are 
over thirty-five years of age. This church suffers not only from a 
deficiency of men and boys but also from a deficiency of youth, in 
spite of the fact that there is a normal proportion of young people 
in the community. Each year young people must be recruited 
if the membership is to be maintained through the decades. 
Where this is not done a scar will show on the population pyramid 
which probably will never be eradicated. 

5. As in other types of cities, religious leaders lament the “ lack 
of zeal and woeful lack of understanding of what it means to 
follow Christ.” As one pastor says: 

My people are members in name but not genuinely at heart, mis¬ 
taking church membership for kingdom membership. 

Some ministers are more concerned about the conventional observ¬ 
ances of religion, while others are distressed by “ the failure to 
develop Christian character in all its implications for social and 


The Church in the Industrial City 197 

community life.” These latter are anxious to prevent the church 
from becoming a class institution which gives members of a privi¬ 
leged economic group the satisfactions of religious worship but 
does not stimulate them to spiritual achievement. One discern¬ 
ing pastor reports that his church is 

separated from the wealthier people by what both the church and the 
wealthier people seem to think is one step — and separated from the 
extremely poor in the same way. 

For alert religious leaders problems are the obverse side of 
programs. The church’s recognition of the difficulties which con¬ 
front it is a good omen, affording as it does the basis for improve¬ 
ment and growth. 

Between the Denominations 

One or another type of interdenominational church council 
will be found in nearly all industrial cities. In some cases this 
is simply a ministerial association, meeting once a month to hear 
visiting lecturers or to plan a community Lenten service. In other 
instances it is a closely knit organization to which the churches 
in from five to fifteen denominations belong, with a paid secretary 
and a full set of functioning committees. 

These councils generally seem to have their rise because of 
two contrasting influences: (1) In commercial centers loyalty 
to the community and pride in the city as well as mutual re¬ 
ligious interests may produce an association for ministers just 
as they do a chamber of commerce or a Rotary club for business¬ 
men. (2) In a great city the bafflement which results from the 
complexity of social forces may compel a degree of cooperation 
purely as a measure of self-defense and economy. The former 
drive operates with greater effectiveness in medium-sized cities, 
especially those which are of the independent commercial type. 
The latter drive would appear to be more effective for producing 
united action in the metropolis. 

The industrial city, with more sharply demarcated population 


198 City and Church in Transition 

groups, is less of a unit than the commercial city. If this generali¬ 
zation be correct one might predict that interchurch cooperation 
would be less effective in industrial than in commercial centers. 
Such appears to be the case, in spite of the fact that some munici¬ 
palities, like Scranton and Winston-Salem, have strong, well or¬ 
ganized councils. Even though most industrial cities have an 
interdenominational association, few ministers regard it as of 
sufficient importance to mention; this is in contrast to responses 
from commercial cities. There appears to be less wholehearted, 
enthusiastic, and extensive interdenominational cooperation in 
industrial centers, the majority of churches concentrating on 
their own individual tasks. Three ministers in different de¬ 
nominations, writing of the same industrial city, report: 

A sadly divided Christendom. 

This community is not overchurched, thank goodness, but the 
churches do not cooperate as they might. 

Most churches in the city are very conservative in theology and 
individualistic; each goes its own way. 

Many other quotations with similar purport could be presented 
from this same city. 

One reason for the relative weakness of interchurch coopera¬ 
tion is the militant fundamentalist movement in three of the 
cities which were studied. This not only causes cleavage between 
“ liberal ” and “ conservative ” churches, but also creates sus¬ 
picion and tension within institutions which fear for their own 
security. Thus a minister writes: 

Many fundamentalist groups are here within all of our churches. 
I have been tempted to make a study of about seventy-five “ store¬ 
room ” gospel tabernacles, Pentecostal halls, etc., which are located 
here. 

In another city, three of the leading churches from as many de¬ 
nominations 


199 


The Church in the Industrial City 

have split over the modernist-fundamentalist question in the past 
fifteen months. (There are many other literalist-teaching churches.) 
These, together with two independent churches which have been 
formed after splits, proselyte freely. Difficulty in effecting coopera¬ 
tion of Protestant churches results from this condition. 

Speaking concerning the methods employed by some of the schis¬ 
matic fundamentalists the pastor of another conservative church 
states, “ Although we hold with them in doctrine, we cannot in 
action.” Other cities appear to be much freer from this type 
of tension. Only further study will reveal whether the presence 
of doctrinal conflicts is more characteristic of industrial than of 
commercial cities. Apparently, however, this type of tension is 
again on the increase throughout the country and seems to focus 
in certain centers. 

The overlapping of churches appears to be a much more seri¬ 
ous problem in some places than others. For example, in one 
midwest town there are twelve churches in an area four blocks 
square, with others in the immediate vicinity. It is a cause for 
encouragement, however, that this situation is not characteristic 
of all communities; in some there is almost unanimous agree¬ 
ment that overchurching is not a serious problem. Apart from 
the fundamentalist-modernist conflict there appears to be very 
little unfriendly competition between churches of the different 
denominations. This is fortunate, since the task before organized 
religion is great if it aims to reach the unchurched, the forty 
per cent of all men and women, and boys and girls over thirteen 
years of age, in industrial cities who have no avowed relation¬ 
ship to any religious institution. 




12 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 

T HE TRAITS which distinguish the industrial city from 
her commercial sister are present to an even greater de¬ 
gree in the industrial suburb because of its marked 
concentration on manufacturing. Here, however, the difference 
is one not merely of degree but also of type; for while the suburb 
grows in part by an influx of people from its hinterland its chief 
population source is the neighboring city. Indeed, except for 
the metropolis to which it is adjoined, it would probably never 
have risen above the level of the small town. It is dependent 
on the larger city not only for population but also for the in¬ 
dustries which have moved to it and which flourish only because 
of the advantages afforded by a great metropolitan area. 

Some industrial suburbs have not had the gradual growth which 
characterizes a city in the center of its own hinterland, but arose 
suddenly, when a great corporation waved its magic wand. Such 
centers as Gary and Dearborn have been industrial from the 
start, and consequently have drawn only those people to whom 
such a community makes an economic or cultural appeal. Others 
(Lynn, Elizabeth and, to a degree, Yonkers) have become such 
“ by conversion.” Once pleasant residential towns, the delight 
of commuters, they first welcomed and then were overwhelmed 
by invading industry. The presence of new peoples who flowed 
in to fill the beckoning industrial jobs produced cultural tensions 
and caused many who thought their “ social position ” threatened 
to move to other towns. This movement also is part of the proc¬ 
ess of population selection. A minister from one such suburb 
writes: 


200 



The Church in the Industrial Suburb 201 

We have a spirit of racial antagonism; Italian and Negro groups 
have no facilities for community life. There is political and economic 
exploitation of them. This city is a group of segregated communities 
with little interest in civic affairs except as they affect our section. 

The disappearance of those who have been the community’s 
standard-bearers results in the crumbling of the older traditions 
and civic consciousness. This is accentuated by the rapid inflow 
of new and diverse population groups which cannot be readily 
assimilated. As indicated in chapter 5, the industrial suburb is 
predominantly occupied by immigrants and their children. The 
tension between these two generations, involving the disintegra¬ 
tion of Old World cultures and the adoption of the new, creates 
much misunderstanding between parents and children, producing 
a measure of family disorganization as well as other forms of 
social maladjustment — restlessness, delinquency, and the weak¬ 
ening of moral codes. All of these factors have an influence on 
the community and on the church. 

The Effects on the Patterns of Organized Religion 

Every factor shaping the life of man also influences his church. 
The dominance of manufacturing in the suburb ties the church 
closely to the whole industrial process. Where wages are low, 
social institutions, the church included, suffer. When unemploy¬ 
ment stalks the streets additional problems are laid on the 
church’s doorstep, while its ability to meet these increased de¬ 
mands is restricted by shortage of funds. Church attendance 
is affected by the shift system in the large mills and factories 
which operate continuously, and it is difficult to persuade men 
to assume leadership, since they can be present only on alternate 
Sundays or perhaps on one in three. When an official board 
assembles in a church serving steel workers, it seldom happens that 
more than half of the male members can be present; the rest are 
in the mills. 

The intensity and strain resulting from high-speed industrial 
production, the feeling of economic insecurity which hovers over 


202 


City and Church in Transition 

nearly every wage earner, the omnipresent, smoke-belching fac¬ 
tory, produce in people social and psychic reactions of which the 
church must be cognizant. In the relatively calm and stable 
commercial city which treats its citizens more gently there are 
fewer cases of personality disorganization. In the suburb, how¬ 
ever, on Saturday night many a worker, reacting from the tension 
of the week, wishes to cut loose from the whole of conventional 
living, forget himself and his responsibilities, and “ have a big 
time.” It is no wonder that the church does not see him the 
next day. Only as the minister understands sympathetically the 
problems of the laboring man will he find much community re¬ 
sponse to the program of the church. He must identify himself 
with the community, its fears and worries, and also its hopes, 
many of which are vague and ill-defined. 

The same influences which attracted central and southern Eu¬ 
ropeans to the industrial city drew others with this cultural 
background to “ the workshop of the nation,” the industrial sub¬ 
urb. The Roman Catholic church and the Jewish synagogue, the 
dominant religious institutions of these people, were brought by 
them to their new home. For instance, in Paterson, which ac¬ 
cording to the federal census is one of the most completely 
churched cities in the country, with about three-fourths of its 
adult population belonging to some religious institution, one-half 
of the church members are Roman Catholics and over a fifth are 
Jews. The Protestant denominations divide a fourth among them. 
The reason for the weakness of Protestantism is certainly not 
that it has too few churches: with less than a third of the member¬ 
ship, it possesses approximately two-thirds of the churches. The 
importance of the Catholic Church can be accounted for only 
in terms of the population selection of the city itself. 

The majority of industrial suburbs are less well churched. At 
the other extreme is Cicero, predominantly Czechoslovak in popu¬ 
lation. Only thirty-six out of every hundred adults are con¬ 
nected with any religious institution; of these, thirty belong to 
the Roman Catholic Church. The background of these Bohe- 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 203 

mian peoples, with their traditional “ free-thinking ” societies, 
influences the religious life of the suburb. 

This example raises an interesting point concerning the changes 
that are taking place in the cultural life of first and second 
generation immigrant groups in industrial centers. The dissolu¬ 
tion of the conventional social controls which operated in the 
Old World and the fact that American patterns are not clearly 
defined in immigrant communities have had a twofold effect on 
religious life. The church, whether Protestant or Catholic, suf¬ 
fers from the disappearance of the notions of authority which 
had been tacitly accepted and which have aided in the mainte¬ 
nance of member loyalty. This weakening of social controls has 
lowered the prestige of the church in the community and has also 
lessened its economic security. On the other hand, the whole¬ 
hearted allegiance of the Bohemians to their free-thinking so¬ 
cieties is also beginning to waver, and it is a matter of concern 
to many a Czech parent that his children are no longer as devout 
atheists as he and his wife. Authorities in the public schools 
of Cicero report that whereas ten years ago it would have been 
impossible to utilize the services of a minister in any way in 
the schools, this attitude is now changing and occasionally some 
religious leader will be permitted to speak before a student group, 
with no opposition from the students themselves and little from 
their parents. This fact is of significance to all interested in re¬ 
ligion or in social change. It would seem that loyalty to the 
church on the part of some groups, and antagonism toward it 
on the part of others, have both undergone a change and are no 
longer as definitely a part of the mores. Neither the religious 
nor the antireligious authoritarian view is accepted unquestion- 
ingly by the young people. It follows that organized religion can 
exercise growing influence in such communities only if it suc¬ 
ceeds in meeting the manifold and recognized spiritual needs of 
the people, and does not depend for its prestige on abstract or 
theoretical religious authority. 

As yet the importance of this approach is only partially recog- 


204 City and Church in Transition 

nized. Although the narrow and sectarian emphasis is less pro¬ 
nounced in industrial suburbs than in the urban types already 
considered, Protestantism is frequently apologetic and on the 
defensive. Many of the churches are small, poorly located and 
housed, and inadequately financed; their members, surrounded 
by non-Protestants, have developed a feeling of inferiority and a 
defeatist psychology, an attitude which is one of the chief handi¬ 
caps to their work. 

Some churches which once flourished but have since been over¬ 
whelmed by the newcomers have been unwilling to adjust their 
program to meet the changing community needs, with the re¬ 
sult that as old members move away the struggle to maintain 
the organization becomes increasingly acute. Members who are 
still connected with the church and neighborhood feel bitter to¬ 
ward the “ intruders.” This of course makes reconciliation be¬ 
tween community and church well-nigh impossible. Fortunately, 
in practically every city studied there are not a few churches 
which have been conspicuously successful in maintaining a po¬ 
sition of leadership and service to the local community without 
any diminution of spiritual earnestness or religious insight. 

Specialized Church Types 

The study of adaptation in human institutions is as interesting 
and illuminating as the study of adaptations of flora and fauna. 
Churches, like other organizations, do not adjust themselves to 
new situations with uniform success, but many have found a 
niche in the social organization of the industrial suburb which 
gives them not only opportunities to serve but also a basis for 
steady expansion. 

The bilingual church illustrates an adjustment to an earlier 
situation. When there was a rapid influx from Europe of Germans 
or Italians, many of whom had no knowledge of English, it was 
essential to develop a bilingual program carrying forward work 
for the adults in Italian and for the children in both Italian and 
English. This program did not necessarily involve social, recrea- 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 205 

tional, or community features, but usually was merely an attempt 
to carry over the conventional American church services through 
the native tongue of the people. Many such institutions are con¬ 
tinuing to perform valued services, not only for the language 
group but also for the community. However, the passage of 
time, involving the death of the older members and the disap¬ 
pearance of the language barrier, makes this increasingly an out¬ 
moded pattern of action. The minister of a small suburban Ger¬ 
man church (forty-five members) indicates that there are many 
Italians and Negroes in the neighborhood but states: “ Our pro¬ 
gram is designed to reach Germans and persons of German descent, 
members or nonmembers.” It is not surprising that fewer than 
one-half the members of his church live within a radius of a 
mile, for these people have long since moved from the community 
and the church cannot recruit new members (i. e., “ persons of 
German descent ”) locally. Obviously it will become more and 
more difficult for the minister to fulfill his objective, “ to bring 
Christ to the German-speaking people of this town, in the belief 
that they hardly would join an English-speaking church.” Evi¬ 
dently they are not joining his. His chief problem, apart from 
the influx of Italians and Negroes, is that there “ is practically 
no immigration from Germany.” 

This case illustrates how an adaptation successful in one period 
may be unsuitable a few decades later. Ministers, laymen, and 
mission boards would do well to lay plans for the discontinuance 
of such bilingual work in the next two decades, since it is almost 
certain that the immigration policy of the government will not 
change. Toward that end they should not encourage men to 
prepare for the bilingual ministry who cannot also speak fluently 
and clearly in English. 

Another adaptation to the industrial suburb — also found in 
a few cases in the industrial city — is the institutional church. 
Many ministers and countless laymen recognize the church’s 
responsibility to serve the people of the neighborhood as well 
as the church members who have moved away, and aim to meet 


206 City and Church in Transition 

social, educational, and recreational needs, and to provide for 
spiritual welfare through conventional services. This is done 
with the idea not of proselyting but rather of reaching the thou¬ 
sands of children and adults found in every area who have no 
connection with any religious organization. Rare indeed is the 
community which does not have at least one-third its total popu¬ 
lation unchurched. But frequently the people are not so ad¬ 
verse to the church as they are assumed to be by a minister who 
has made little effort to reach them. Many can be reached, if 
the church actively seeks them out and does not expect them to 
take the initiative. 

The institutional church, by the very nature of its program 
and the economic status of those whom it serves, is dependent for 
part of its support on endowment, on funds from denominational 
headquarters, or on a grant from the community chest fund. The 
program requires a staff of paid or volunteer workers who are both 
in sympathy with the project and possessed of the skills and per¬ 
sonal qualities which will make them good exponents of the 
Christian way of life. The importance of the institutional church, 
serving a social as well as a religious purpose, should be recog¬ 
nized by other more fortunate Christians who do not have to 
live in the industrial area. It is essentially an interpreter of one 
economic class, one racial group, to another, showing by deed 
as well as by word what Christianity may mean in the life of 
individuals and society. 

Another specialized church type in the industrial suburb is the 
“ mission,” usually housed in a small frame structure or a vacant 
store building, with a program designed for the immediate neigh¬ 
borhood. The majority of such missions confine their activities 
to preaching, exhortation, and revivalistic meetings, coupled with 
a Sunday school program. They make an appeal decidedly dif¬ 
ferent from that of the less emotional institutional church. Some 
missions provide bread and soup for those who remain for the after¬ 
meeting; most do not. Others, in connection with the Sunday 
school work, specialize in a play and club program for children; 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 


207 


usually a daily vacation Bible school is operated during the 
summer. One thing, however, all missions have in common: they 
can be maintained only if the leaders have a devout, almost pas¬ 
sionate interest in the people of the area. It is this evident absence 
of barriers between the leaders and the community which provides 
an open-sesame for the organization. It is possible that the Prot¬ 
estantism of the future will find it just as advisable to establish 
carefully supervised missions with an intelligent and effective pro¬ 
gram in slum areas or on the outskirts of the city (unless these 
are otherwise churched) as the public health authorities find it 
to open clinics. The latter realize that the people of the neigh¬ 
borhood will not go to the city hall or hospital a mile away to 
be served and that the only way to build up health in the com¬ 
munity is to incur the trouble and expense of maintaining local 
neighborhood units. 

Many churches, not included in the above types, flourish or 
struggle along on a bare subsistence level in industrial suburbs. 
Their program may be-the conventional one of the central, city¬ 
wide church, or the humble society in the workingman’s area. 
The location however and the specific needs of its own community 
determine the nature of the church’s responsibility; the success 
with which these needs are met will have a direct bearing not 
only on its present condition but also on its future state of health. 

Religious Patterns Differ with the Suburb 

The differences in the history and industrial life of the various 
suburbs are matched by contrasts in the religious patterns. 

Lynn is a well churched community, with almost sixty out of 
every hundred adults having some religious connection. Over 
half of these, one out of every three in the entire population, are 
Roman Catholics. This strength 

makes other groups very much aware of their presence and power in 
community life, especially the political life of the city. We have a 
Catholic mayor, a Catholic governor of the state, a Catholic com¬ 
missioner of education for the state, and Catholic officials in many 


208 City and Church in Transition 

other key positions in both city and commonwealth. However, the 
Catholic population sets a good example in church loyalty and attend¬ 
ance to laggard Protestants, and in general the competition keeps the 
Protestants alive to their peculiar genius and work as they might 
not otherwise be. 

This dominance of Catholics is to be expected because of the 
population composition of Lynn. Other religious organizations 
are comparatively weak. The Jewish synagogue ranks next to 
the Catholic Church in membership and serves as many as all the 
Baptist and Methodist churches combined. Congregationalism, 
strong in most sections of New England, claims fewer than two 
per cent of the people in Lynn. 

This city has a long history and has undergone many changes. 
Population of the “ old stock ” has largely moved away, and Rus¬ 
sians, Italians, Poles, Jews, and Greeks as well as English, Irish, 
and French-Canadians have swept in. These groups have estab¬ 
lished their own churches, which are now flourishing. However 
there is no open antagonism between the old and the new; min¬ 
isters of the established Protestant institutions continue to have 
the respect of the townspeople and are able to influence public 
opinion on community issues to a considerable degree. Never¬ 
theless it is evident from the replies of many ministers that the 
prospects for Protestantism are not encouraging: 

No churches are making any great changes, nor have done so 
during the past ten years. The physical equipment remains about 
the same. There are several small churches in the growing residential 
sections, but they do not seem to be growing rapidly. 

Too many churches, many of them dead or dying. Recent in¬ 
vestigation reveals that only one church of my denomination made an 
advance in recent years in Lynn, and all are having a hard time. 

Many another minister speaks of overchurching, although none 
accuses his fellows of proselyting or other unfair practices. A 
number recognize that over one-third of the people of Lynn, many 
with a Protestant background, have no church connection. This, 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 209 

however, is the problem of most cities and cannot be solved by 
any sudden or spasmodic effort. 

Dearborn is a much younger city than either Lynn or Paterson, 
growing from twenty-five hundred to eighty-five thousand in¬ 
habitants since 1920. Relatively few of these people are foreign- 
born ; most have come from rural America, either directly or by 
way of Detroit. Consequently Dearborn differs from other in¬ 
dustrial suburbs in its cultural background. One result of this 
difference is that Protestantism is proportionately stronger here 
than in the older suburbs, a large percentage of whose population 
is foreign-born. Dearborn is worthy of attention because of its 
rapid growth and the distinctive problems faced by its churches. 

Organized religion seems to be most effective where the people 
have deep roots. Stability and the feeling of community associ¬ 
ated with it furnish fertile soil for community institutions such 
as the church. Where there is a high mobility rate, as in Dear¬ 
born, where employment peaks which suck in labor from sur¬ 
rounding territories are followed by unemployment which forces 
the workers out again, it is difficult to produce community con¬ 
sciousness and, for the same reasons, to develop strong churches. 

Another difficulty facing these congregations rises out of the 
fact that many of their buildings were erected toward the close 
of the prosperity period or during the early stages of the depres¬ 
sion. The result is that Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, and 
other churches are heavily in debt. Their members are again 
earning, but for several years the whole city, Ford employees and 
shopkeepers alike, suffered acutely from the economic situation. 
Dearborn is a one-industry town and the depression hit that 
industry. It can scarcely be said that Dearborn is overchurched, 
yet most of the churches, irrespective of denomination, are having 
financial difficulties, a direct reflection of community conditions. 

One other point should be noted. When a town and its in¬ 
stitutions depend on one corporation for sustenance, the indus¬ 
trialist who controls that corporation becomes a very important 
personage for the whole city. He may be arbitrarily opposed to 


210 


City and Church in Transition 

social change in workingmen’s organizations even while he wel¬ 
comes technical improvements in his plants. In such cities min¬ 
isters may be informed directly or indirectly that they are there 
to lead people toward God, to conduct worship services and ad¬ 
minister the sacraments, not to preach a social gospel. This policy 
is effectively urged not only by the industrialist himself but by 
many influential townspeople who do not wish any labor disturb¬ 
ance or who fear the effect of a strike on general business. One 
may wonder what the influence of such a policy will be on a 
minister, whether he conforms or whether he refuses to do so, and 
on the workingmen in their attitude toward the church. Here is 
a problem which cannot be evaded and the course chosen will 
certainly influence the future of the church and perhaps of the 
city and industry. 


Objectives 

Most of the ministers who are serving churches in the industrial 
suburbs, as might be expected, state their objectives in much the 
same terms as do those working in other communities. They 
emphasize the spiritual values of worship, the need for salvation, 
the smooth functioning of the local institution, and the over¬ 
coming of indifference, particularly in young people. 

However, some ministers serving industrial suburbs do state 
certain distinctive aims. The first of these and the one on which 
there is most unanimity is “ the creation of a Christian com¬ 
munity.” There may be no essential correlation between the ris¬ 
ing rate of industrial activity as one moves from commercial to 
industrial city and then to industrial suburb, and the heightened 
consciousness of community responsibility on the part of the min¬ 
isters ; nevertheless these two trends are parallel and clearly evi¬ 
dent. Also parallel is the presence of an increasingly large number 
of foreign-born people, to reach whom it is necessary to provide 
a community program. In any case, the religious leaders seem 
to be more aware of social issues, of economic injustice, of the 
dangers of racial prejudice, and also of the church’s obligation to 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 211 

serve all persons regardless of skin color or economic standing. 
This is not to say that ministers in commercial cities would not 
be as sensitive to these problems if they had to face them in a 
similar situation. 

Thirty-seven out of the sixty-five ministers from industrial 
suburbs who replied to the questionnaire explicitly acknowledged 
their responsibility to serve the community and not simply the 
membership. Only ten reported that their programs were de¬ 
void of community interest. The attitude of the majority may 
be summarized by quoting a pastor from Dearborn: 

My objective: primarily to cultivate Christian idealism and prac¬ 
tice in the community at large. We are far more interested in building 
the kingdom of God, in saturating the community with its spirit, than 
in increasing the membership or becoming a slave to mass meetings. 

Problems and Programs 

The church in the industrial suburb faces a number of difficult 
problems. 

1. There are two schools of ministers in the industrial suburb 
when the function of the church is under discussion. According 
to one, the church should preach the gospel, convert sinners, and 
“ edify ” the saved; club and class work is secondary, if it should 
exist at all. Says one minister: 

Our program is based on the belief that whatever does not lead to 
a conversion to Christianity is inexcusable waste on the part of a 
Christian church. 

Another minister with a similar view feels that one of his chief 
problems consists in the fact that 

our people for the most part [are] devoid of respect for the Sabbath. 
Officers as well as members think nothing of buying things on Sunday 
or going to amusements. 

Certain pastors with a program for nonmember children will 
permit these youngsters to play in the gymnasium or come to the 
club only provided they attend Sunday school. It is their opinion 


212 


City and Church in Transition 

that the church is justified in using its funds only where there 
is a hope of converting the child or adult to the Christian faith. 
In contrast the majority of ministers who emphasize the com¬ 
munity-centered program set up no such limitations. They state 
their position somewhat as follows: The church has a contribu¬ 
tion to make to the whole of life. Teaching of the Bible is im¬ 
portant, but we must first win the confidence of the child through 
discovering his interests and supplying a program to challenge 
them. If we do our work well he will wish to join the religious 
as well as the social fellowship. 

It is not the function of this book to approve or condemn either 
of these theories of missionary responsibility. However, it is 
proper to note that the viewpoint first stated delimits the contacts 
of the church in the local area and automatically applies a selec¬ 
tive principle which will bring in only two groups of people: 
the one, sincere participants who have been won over, and the 
other, those who fulfill the requirements simply to attain the 
reward. 

2. The problem of mobility is more acute in the industrial 
suburb than in an independent city. The story is the same in 
many places: 

We built a beautiful church (1929) in what seemed a growing 
neighborhood. But the newcomers are largely Catholics and Jews. 

Slow but steady shrinkage due to deaths and removals. 

The old and well-to-do families are dying out or moving beyond us. 

This steady outward pressure of population from the metropolis, 
bringing in new and strange people and carrying farther out the 
erstwhile pillars of the church, increases the minister’s difficulty in 
securing able leadership for the church school and the scouting 
program and in raising funds. Mobility and instability are Sia¬ 
mese twins which, much as they may be deplored, must be taken 
into account when a new church is to be built or an old one saved. 

Church planning, which is desirable in a commercial city, be- 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 213 

comes imperative in a suburb. A certain minister describes his 
church as having been well located till an in-movement of Italians 
and Negroes cut it off from a developing area in which there were 
a hundred and fifty families who in his opinion would normally 
look to his church. Actually, however, the institution was not 
so well located, for it was already separated from the new district 
by a four-track railroad located a few blocks from the church. 
The Italians and Negroes moved north along the tracks, in the 
low-rent interstitial area. This is a situation which a careful sur¬ 
vey could have forecast. Now, however, “ children must be driven 
to Sunday school, one mile, or walk through the Negro section, 
which parents discourage.” It would seem that the time has 
arrived when the various denominations will find it advisable and 
economical to provide planning boards which will assist local 
churches to select a new site wisely. Once an expensive building 
has been erected it cannot readily be moved; consequently, 
the population shifts of the next twenty-five years must be fore¬ 
seen if waste and discouragement are to be avoided. 

3. A third problem develops as an indirect result of population 
mobility. When people with other cultural and religious interests 
begin to take over the community and members of the Protestant 
churches move away, there is always danger that a defeatist psy¬ 
chology will develop. One minister who is serving a church in 
an area occupied chiefly by Poles, Lithuanians, and Italians, 
writes: 

My first task has been to build up the morale of the church 
itself. ... I am trying to destroy the inferiority complex which has 
troubled the church through all its existence, to make the member¬ 
ship church-conscious and unashamed. 

A pastor in a suburb a thousand miles away notices that the pre¬ 
ponderance of Jews in his community has influenced the attitude 
of his church members so that they no longer find the same satis¬ 
faction in the Christian celebrations. 

Ministers themselves frequently lose courage in such situations. 


214 City and Church in Transition 

In spite of the fact that there is a morbid tendency to overrate 
the size of other religious groups in a local community as an excuse 
for one’s own poor showing, it might as well be frankly recog¬ 
nized that a Protestant church located in a community which 
is being peopled by southern Europeans and their immediate 
descendants will have a difficult and discouraging time indeed, 
and the minister will have many a headache, if the program is 
designed primarily for the old, native-white membership of the 
church. A religious leader suggests that “ we must get together 
or pass out of the picture.” However, even the uniting of churches 
will not solve the problem unless the united church will send 
roots deep into the local community life. Morale can best be 
maintained through a program which is vital and alive. 

4. A problem of a different nature is that of reaching the 
youth. While this problem is not peculiar to the industrial sub¬ 
urb it is accentuated there because of the cultural changes which 
are taking place. One minister writes: 

Our youth are a heartbreaking problem. The social program, the 
recreation activities are all too tame for them. They seem to have 
lost a good taste for the fine and the beautiful. This appears with 
older young people and hardly at all with younger groups. The age 
group from twelve to eighteen are coming along splendidly. Those 
from around nineteen to twenty-five are adrift. 

One wonders if the younger children will not follow the pattern 
of their older brothers and sisters when they themselves reach 
later adolescence. Obviously religious leaders must possess great 
understanding and tact if they are to hold the confidence of young 
people and assist them in the development of life attitudes. 
Some churches, through a well integrated youth program, have 
been able to reduce juvenile delinquency in their district. Re¬ 
ligion can affect life. 

Ministers from several suburbs are disturbed by “ the difficulty 
of growing ‘ from below,’ ” by which they mean that, though the 
church school flourishes, the children do not make the transition 
to church membership. Children lose interest and drop out dur- 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 215 

ing the teen years, or become so enwrapped in the church school 
program that they think of it as an end in itself and resent any 
interference on the part of the church. From one industrial sub¬ 
urb a minister writes: 

Here the Sunday school has supplanted the church. We cannot get 
any considerable number of our children and young people in the 
church worship. . . . Unless a change comes fifteen years will witness 
many churches going out of business. 

Religious educators may say that the fault lies with the services 
of worship; but certainly, in the minds of numerous ministers, 
the church school operates almost as a parasitic institution, draw¬ 
ing support from the church but being unwilling to assume propor¬ 
tionate obligations or to lead the children into membership. 

An aspect of the youth problem is “ the carelessness of parents 
and their lack of interest in cultivating the religious life of chil¬ 
dren.” The minister of another church adds: 

Seventy per cent of the Sunday school children come from homes 
which have nothing to do with the church or religion except to send 
their children. 

A third pastor refers to the difficulty of contacting people in their 
homes, even the parents of the children in his own church school. 

The many disorganizing influences of a heterogeneous com¬ 
munity will inevitably affect the attitudes of children as well as 
of adults. If the parents have no clearly defined goals in life they 
can scarcely impart such to their children. The church may make 
a contribution to the latters’ spiritual guidance, but it is a much 
more arduous task because of the necessity of gaining their at¬ 
tention and confidence without parental help. 

5. A program for children whose parents are uninterested will 
naturally have to be of a missionary type, for these parents will 
not carry their share of the financial burden. The financial prob¬ 
lem is usually acute in churches which serve a community that 
is chiefly non-Protestant or indifferent. The assistance of paid 


216 City and Church in Transition 

as well as volunteer workers is frequently required. If a seven- 
day-week program is to be conducted the staff must be larger, 
and certainly fuel, light, and repair bills will be greater. Older 
members are moving away and “ the good givers are dying off.” 
If the work is to be continued support must come from another 
quarter. To secure “ enough money really to meet the economic, 
cultural and spiritual needs of a proletarian area ” is an objective 
of many ministers, but their hair turns gray in trying to attain it. 

Summary attention may be given to the program of those 
churches in the industrial suburb which add supplementary and 
enriching items to the conventional pattern. Many additional 
elements have been developed for members and nonmembers: 
church night programs, dramatics, musicales, forums, literary so¬ 
cieties, civic and even garden clubs, women’s associations and 
men’s clubs. For children and young people there are scouting 
programs, Camp Fire Girls’ circles, athletic activities including 
the use of a gymnasium, weekday and vacation church schools, 
a youth choir school, hikes and camping; one church even has 
a dancing class. Among the institutional features designed par¬ 
ticularly for the local community are day nurseries, child welfare 
clinics, Americanization and English language classes, libraries, 
mothers’ study clubs, and community nights designed to interest 
particular racial groups. Services are also held for foreign lan¬ 
guage congregations: Syrian, Chinese, Italian, and Portuguese. 
One church is currently conducting a special Sunday evening 
series for four months, “ a project in religious understanding, 
with people of various faiths participating.” Ministers also as¬ 
sume such community responsibilities as speaking in the public 
schools and to various local societies and groups, as well as carry¬ 
ing a share in the philanthropic and social welfare organizations. 
While no one church undertakes as many as a fifth of these ac¬ 
tivities, such a list is evidence of the extent to which many institu¬ 
tions have accepted a place of responsibility and leadership in 
the local community. 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 


217 


Some Unrecognized Problems 

Three types of estrangement occur in areas (such as the in¬ 
dustrial suburb) characterized by a large foreign or Negro popu¬ 
lation. Each provides the church an opportunity for the recon¬ 
ciliation of conflicting groups, yet only a few ministers appear 
to have recognized any one of them. The first involves the recon¬ 
ciling of old and new population elements. One minister states 
that his chief problem is 

the re-adaptation of the program of a church, ministering to an ex¬ 
clusive residential area in past years, to an apartment population of 
business and industrial people, and the necessity of providing a 
cultural ministry for those who live in an exclusive residential area 
and also a social program for the industrial groups. 

A reconciliation of people who possess different cultural back¬ 
grounds and who may feel that they are in economic conflict is 
not easy, but it would seem to be the function of a church whose 
membership is in the one group and whose community includes 
the other to assume this task. 

The advent of first and second generation immigrants produces 
first irritation and resentment and later sharp opposition and 
prejudice on the part of those who have been in the community 
for a longer period. As the foreign group becomes dominant the 
remaining native whites, who perhaps cannot move from the 
neighborhood, isolate themselves so far as possible from the in¬ 
truders and resent the church’s having anything to do with them, 
asserting that to encourage them is to depress land values still 
further. To convert these antagonistic attitudes into apprecia¬ 
tion and understanding may well seem a herculean task, but it 
is one from which the church, with its preachment concerning 
brotherhood, must not shrink. 

A second type of reconciliation involves the leveling of the bar¬ 
riers which separate foreign language groups. The need for this 
is unfortunately recognized by only a few. The issue is clear to 
a minister in Cicero who analyzes his objectives as 


218 


City and Church in Transition 

healing of neighborhood feuds, due to politics, religion and race; 
uniting of many sects into one real church; holding the children and 
young people for the future church. . . . The chief divisive factor 
in our religious life is that of race, although religion is also to be 
reckoned with. The second generation is showing signs of a wider 
outlook, and intermarriage is breaking the barriers down, so that 
there is more hope of a united folk. 

Certainly it is an appropriate function of the Christian church to 
present the claims as well as the contributions of the various 
racial groups living within the community to one another. This 
is not readily achieved, partly because of the poor example set 
by native-born whites, partly because of the economic competi¬ 
tion which is felt when one race group threatens to supplant an¬ 
other in a particular industry, partly because of the threat of 
invasion of “ our community ” by groups with strange customs 
and habits. Native whites are not the only ones who evidence race 
prejudice, for “ subordinate ” groups have a reciprocal prejudice 
toward the native-born and in their turn look down on some other 
people whose status is lower than their own. Jane Addams told 
of a conversation with a young Italian who lived near Hull House. 
Other Italians had made the situation so unpleasant for a small 
Negro church located on the fringe of the area that the Negroes 
withdrew. Miss Addams asked why the Italian people should 
act this way, whereas in Italy prejudice would not have been 
shown against the Negro. He replied: “ Well, Miss Addams, I 
guess it is a sign that we are becoming Americanized.” This 
story may well shock many Christians, yet there is much evidence 
that the church itself has been unwilling in such communities to 
surmount prejudice: 

We do let a Negro mission group use our church parlors for meet¬ 
ings, but intensive opposition by older conservative officials had to be 
overcome to get even this consideration. 

The third type of reconciliation which the church in the in¬ 
dustrial suburb might well undertake is to interpret the immigrant 
to his children and vice versa. Between every two generations 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 219 

misunderstanding is common; between the immigrant and his 
children it is well-nigh omnipresent. What the Polish, Czech, or 
Italian father and mother hold dear — the memories of the home¬ 
land, the loyalties and fears which are European, the apprecia¬ 
tion of the old customs and the pleasure of hearing the native 
language — these are not and cannot be fully understood by 
children born in this country. In like manner, the expectations, 
ambitions, new loyalties of the children and their unwillingness to 
submit to the Old World traditions and the discipline of their 
“ foreign ” parents, puzzle and dismay their elders who dread 
being called “ un-American ” and do not know how to guide their 
children in this strange environment. Only one out of the sixty- 
five ministers mentioned this problem, although it must occur in 
practically every community in the industrial suburb.* 

While, then, most ministers recognize their obligation to the 
community and provide a program for various local groups, it 
will be necessary for them to deal in more specific and definitive 
form with these problems of reconciliation if they are to reach the 
countless thousands of the foreign-born and their children, as 
well as other members of the lower economic classes who have 
drifted away from the church. 

Interdenominational Relations 

Vital interdenominational coordination appears, from the re¬ 
ports of ministers, to be practically nonexistent. Only four stated 
that there was cordial cooperation among the various denomina¬ 
tions of their city. Thirteen took exactly the opposite point of 
view and spoke of overchurching, competition and conflict. Far 
more indicated that there was no competition “ so far as my 
work is concerned.” 

It is difficult to understand why persons who have been em¬ 
phasizing the nonsectarian and community character of their 
endeavor should be so generally indifferent to cooperation between 
the denominations; but apparently each minister, eager to carry 
* Cf. pp. 271 f. 


220 


City and Church in Transition 

forward his own church activities, has had little time or effort 
to expend in developing a city-wide plan or program. Another 
partial explanation may be that the various suburban churches 
tend to look to the metropolis for denominational fellowship and 
missionary aid. Several bemoan the individualistic spirit but 
hopefully insist that “ the Protestant evangelical forces can be 
depended on when occasion arises.” 

In most cities there is a ministerial association, but this gen¬ 
erally appears to be a weak structure, with spasmodic meetings 
which are poorly attended: 

I am a member of the ministerial association and I have not heard 
of a single outstanding community work by the churches of our city. 

Each Protestant church seems so busy promoting its own special 
program, there is precious little cooperation among the ministers as 
a whole. 

Ministerial meetings are seldom held. When they are, not more 
than an eighth or tenth of the congregations are represented. ... As 
I see it the preachers are afraid of one another. Proselyting is 
carried on quite openly. ... I do not feel the situation is utterly 
hopeless, but it is disconcerting, and somewhat discouraging so far 
as united effort is concerned. 

The above suggestion apparently has point to it. From another 
city comes a frank statement which supports this contention: 

Our church, being a conservative church, is faced with the problem 
of deciding how far we may go in cooperating with the other churches 
in our community, many of which are extremely liberal in their views. 
There is, within the city, a splendid spirit of cooperation between the 
churches brought about mainly by the ministerial fellowship. Our 
problem is to cooperate without sacrificing those principles for which 
we stand. 

Some condemn their ministerial brethren severely. For example, 
one sees it thus: 

The real lack is religion on the part of the ministers who think a 
church is a place to promote their prejudices and traditions. No 
interest in social welfare and less knowledge about it all. 


The Church in the Industrial Suburb 221 

While this may be a harsh judgment, the evidence seems almost 
conclusive that there is less interdenominational cooperation in 
the industrial suburb than in either the industrial or the com¬ 
mercial city. 

On the other hand, within such suburbs the need of interchurch 
planning is more acute. Where there are fewer Protestants, ma¬ 
jor denominations tend to cluster their churches near the business 
center, leaving outlying areas relatively neglected. This is poor 
policy, because it increases the competition between churches 
and prevents an effective ministry to the whole area. With most 
of the resources centered in the larger churches, the other congre¬ 
gations have to struggle for their very existence. If these smaller 
churches are to do more than barely keep the machinery moving 
it is necessary for them to have suitable equipment, staff and 
financing. On the basis of united planning and cooperative ac¬ 
tion adequate support could be given to one or two effective in¬ 
stitutions in each of several local communities. More people 
would be reached and the total cost would be no greater. As 
is commonly the case, the hope of a strong community program 
is not realized because we either do not see or are unwilling to 
follow the immediate and logical next steps. 


Illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllli 



The Church in the Residential Suburb 

H OW PLEASANT it must be to live in Newton! ” says 
the denizen of crowded Boston to his more fortunate 
friend in the residential suburb. “ You have no idea 
how lucky you are to live out here in the midst of trees and flowers, 
and with pleasant, cultured people.” Calmly the suburbanite 
accepts the homage paid to his economic status and his good 
judgment. 

The residential suburb, the parlor of the metropolis, consti¬ 
tutes a distinct mediopolitan type. It differs from the independ¬ 
ent commercial city, which performs all urban functions and 
has place for all economic classes; it is a specialized community 
rendering a few distinctive services to the metropolitan area. 
More or less exclusive, it selects people from the higher economic 
classes and its occupational and social patterns are definitely 
in contrast to those in the commercial city.* In like manner, 
it stands in contrast to the industrial suburb; each has its own 
function in the metropolitan setting, catering to certain occupa¬ 
tional groups, certain economic classes. There are relatively 
few foreign-born living within the borders of the residential sub¬ 
urb, and these occupy a subordinate position. There are more 
people over sixty years of age and fewer under thirty-five than 
in the industrial suburb. This is not only because elderly people 
can afford and like to settle in such communities, but also be¬ 
cause the birth rate among those in the child-bearing years tends 
to be lower. People who have “ status,” people who have attained, 


* Cf. chap. 6. 


222 



The Church in the Residential Suburb 223 

are particularly drawn to these centers. It is interesting to note 
that two hundred thirty persons mentioned in Who's Who live 
in Evanston, while only one, a corporation official, resides in 
Cicero, a city of the same size. 

Traits of Residential Suburbs and the Churches 

There are certain characteristics of the residential suburb which 
profoundly affect the patterns of organized religion. Among the 
most prominent is rapid population growth and accompanying 
mobility. This not only involves the settling of newcomers in 
the community but much shifting of residence on the part of 
those already there. In a detailed study of Evanston in 1930 
covering three-fourths of the entire population, it was revealed 
that the median length of residence “ at the present address ” was 
3.6 years; in the two sections nearest Chicago, where there are 
more apartment houses and therefore a lower rate of home owner¬ 
ship and greater mobility, the medians were 2.4 and 2.5 years; i. e., 
half the people had lived at their present address less than two and 
a half years. It is not surprising that in such apartment house 
areas there is less of community consciousness and a poorer 
support for social institutions than in other sections of the city. 
The fact that a large proportion of suburbanites earn their living 
in the metropolis and therefore find their loyalty and interest 
divided between the two cities makes even more difficult the 
maintenance of community consciousness. 

The people, in or out of the church, have little interest in the 
community. There is no community spirit in the suburb, or at least 
little. The city is a place to get away from. The people come here 
to escape the city, and they certainly are not going to get under its 
moral or spiritual needs. 

A second characteristic of the residential suburb is wealth with 
its concomitants. Not all persons in the suburb are affluent; some 
are in the servant group, others, the majority, are in the upper 
middle class and are “ comfortably well off.” Accompanying this 
relative degree of economic security are such social traits as higher 


224 


City and Church in Transition 

educational standards, a pride in enlightenment and intellectual 
attainments, an emphasis on social status, some sophistication, 
and a measure of conscious or unconscious snobbery. Many minis¬ 
ters are painfully aware of these latter traits in their membership. 
One refers to “ the very sophisticated contentment ” of his flock. 
Another states: 

I feel that our problem is to make the people of a privileged com¬ 
munity feel their responsibility for the underprivileged of other com¬ 
munities. There is too much smugness and self-complacency. We 
are trying to battle this. 

A third trait of significance to the churches is the crowded 
social life of the residential suburb. Presumably people would 
have more free time here than elsewhere. Certainly work hours 
are shorter and more servants are employed to lighten the task of 
homemaking. Actually, however, the pressure on one’s time seems 
to be more keenly felt. With the surplus of energy, leadership, 
and desire for intellectual distinction which characterize such 
suburbs, there is commonly a plethora of organized life: clubs, 
reading circles, parent-teacher associations, uplift, reform and 
social service agencies, secret and fraternal societies, bridge clubs, 
business and professional associations with their many committees 
and subcommittees, and so ad infinitum. “ Too crowded living, 
too many inconsequential plans.” 

Not only are there more organizations to belong to and a greater 
variety of programs to attend (mentioned by many ministers), but 
there is also a desire to climb socially. “ The desire for social 
connections of advantage, and to be known in the fashionable and 
popular churches ” motivates the religious alignments of some 
residents. Indeed, it is not uncommon for a woman to work up 
to a post of some importance in one of the “ first ” churches, per¬ 
forming its functions diligently until she can gain sufficient status 
to join the women’s club; once she has attained this great desider¬ 
atum her interest in the church cools rapidly as she transfers her 
talent and enthusiasm to the work of this more exclusive company. 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 


225 


Residential suburbs are characteristically Protestant,* not be¬ 
cause of any inherent difference between the earning powers of 
Protestants and Catholics but simply because those who came 
first to this country, with their Protestant tradition, laid out the 
cities, established the industries, benefited by the real-estate de¬ 
velopments, and, being first on the field, were able to gain wealth 
from the natural resources and population growth. Those who 
came later were chiefly Catholic or Jewish in religious back¬ 
ground, possessed of few financial or other resources and un¬ 
familiar with the ways of the new society. They counted them¬ 
selves fortunate to secure positions on the lower rungs of the 
ladder to success, and most who reached the residential suburbs 
were laborers or artisans. Therefore the Roman Catholic Church, 
which dominates the industrial suburb, is relatively weak in the 
exclusive residential areas, where Catholics are ordinarily far 
outnumbered by Protestants. 

In these suburbs, as has been pointed out, there are an upper 
and a lower social stratum. The upper stratum which sets the 
patterns tends to be Protestant while the lower, which is made up 
of the skilled, semi-skilled and domestic workers, is chiefly either 
Catholic or Negro Protestant. It is these latter groups which 
live “ west of the tracks ” or “ at the foot of the hill.” Indeed, in 
many a community a Catholic or for that matter a Lutheran 
church does not succeed well if located “ east of the tracks,” while 
on the other hand a Presbyterian church located on the west side 
will have to struggle for its very existence. The various denomina¬ 
tions have their respective locales in which they can prosper, just 
as certain plants will grow in sandy soil but not in loam, or vice 
versa. 


Characteristics of Organized Religion 

Certain distinguishable traits demarcate the religious life in 
residential communities. While these do not characterize every 
institution, they are closely associated with the traits which make 
* Cf. pp. 230 f. 


226 City and Church in Transition 

the suburb a distinctive type and are common to all of the cities in 
this class. 

Clearly recognized by all ministers is the effect on church mem¬ 
bership of mobility, which many of them recognize to be one of the 
concomitants of suburban life. Old members are being trans¬ 
ferred to other communities and the making of new contacts is a 
wearing and often unrewarding task. Many who move to the 
suburb are very difficult to reach, and in addition they are loath to 
assume community responsibility. This is particularly true of 
persons living in apartment houses. “ It is no easy task to try 
to make a pastoral call via the speaking-tube.” As the suburb 
grows the number of non-homeowners increases. Not only the 
church but also such agencies as the community chest find them 
unresponsive. 

The countless touch-and-go contacts develop a callousness in 
the life of the typical suburbanite which can be pierced only with 
difficulty by any institution such as the church. Yet the church 
must penetrate this defense armor if it is to gain his loyal participa¬ 
tion and his financial support. The daily movement to the city 
and back, the strain of living, and the crowded hours, cause people 
to long for an opportunity to relax over the week end, and the high¬ 
ways to the open country and the golf courses are crowded on 
Sunday morning. Many are out of the city for the entire summer, 
with the result that in the “ better ” parts of the suburb the church 
school has a nine-month term, for not enough children remain 
to justify a summer vacation school. The influence of mobility 
and fluidity, then, is one of the most significant conditioning fac¬ 
tors in suburban church life. 

The wealth of the suburb is reflected in the beauty of its 
sanctuaries, particularly of its “ first ” churches. These institu¬ 
tions, established when the suburb was young, have been influential 
in the community as well as in its religious life during the whole 
period of its history. The congregations desire structures which 
will do credit to their churches, symbolize their religious faith, and 
at the same time be commensurate with their own economic stand- 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 227 

ards. Beside the sanctuary rises the educational unit, built to 
meet the social, recreational, and educational needs of the children 
and young people. 

This appreciation of the beautiful and artistic is found also 
in the order of service, to which the minister gives much thought 
and attention. In the central churches there is either a paid 
quartet or, if possible, a carefully trained paid choir, to insure that 
the musical portions of the service will be of high quality in tech¬ 
nique as well as in spirit and appeal even to the somewhat critical 
audience. The sermon must be in keeping; the minister too is 
judged on the basis of his technique as well as on that of his 
attitude. Pastoral work is important, but good preaching is the 
sine qua non in a “ first ” church. Indeed, where there is a mem¬ 
bership of a thousand or, as is frequently the case, two to four 
thousand, the Sunday morning worship service is the one opportu¬ 
nity to touch the majority of members, and minister and church 
alike are judged by its beauty and effectiveness. 

Many of these churches have “ streamlined ” their program, 
dropping some of the conventional features, such as the midweek 
prayer meeting and the Sunday evening preaching service. Subur¬ 
banites, at least the vast majority of them, do not want more than 
one religious service a week. In most residential suburbs only the 
smaller churches and those with lower social standing have Sunday 
evening services. 

The social status of the central churches is clearly recognized 
not only by the members but by ministers in lesser churches and 
also by the townsfolk. However, this position in the community 
is attained at a price. Stately buildings and the services of an 
eminent minister and a paid staff are costly. Consequently, in 
spite of their larger membership and greater wealth these religious 
societies also have their financial problems. Further, the money 
must be raised in the nine months of the year when the people are 
“ in residence.” Even the pastor is frequently given a two or three 
month vacation during the summer. 

Ministers of the suburb assert that their program is intended to 


228 


City and Church in Transition 

serve the whole community. It might be more accurately de¬ 
scribed, however, as designed primarily to meet the needs of the 
membership, of all ages, while others are welcome to attend. The 
term “ community-minded ” has a different connotation for them 
than for religious leaders in the industrial suburb. For example, 
here there are few clubs or classes for nonmembers and few evi¬ 
dences of conscious efforts to bring in the unchurched. The re¬ 
sult is that while these churches are tacitly accepted by all as an 
important part of the community life they make relatively little 
if any impression on the unchurched half of the citizenry. 

This unconscious aloofness of the church is patent in the at¬ 
titudes of some leading churches toward the domestic servants of 
the parishioners. In one suburb, after a thorough religious survey, 
the minister of a large church reported that while he had secured 
a number of very good “ leads,” he had also been handed the 
“ preference cards ” of about thirty maids. “ And what can I do 
with them? ” he asked rhetorically. He was right; there was no 
niche in the local organization into which they could readily fit. 
They could not attend on Sunday mornings for they were at home 
preparing dinner. There was no evening service, and they were 
not particularly welcome at the young people’s meetings. To care 
for them it would be necessary to create a special club. Some 
churches have formed “ Thursday afternoon clubs ” for maids, but 
this is resented by many of the intended beneficiaries, who feel that 
it makes conspicuous their servant status and therefore refuse to 
attend. 

The church school in the residential suburb tends to be small. 
This is due in part to the relatively low birth rate and in part to the 
difficulty of maintaining adult classes. Most of the work with 
young people above high school age is carried on through Sunday 
evening fellowships. In few other places have the religious educa¬ 
tion programs been more carefully developed, many of the larger 
institutions employing a full-time director. 

The general intellectual and enlightened point of view — which 
however may be associated with economic conservatism — held 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 229 

by those who have had the advantages of education, travel, and 
social contacts, diminishes sectarianism and supports a liberal 
preaching ministry. There are few signs of ultra-fundamentalist 
activity in any of the eight residential suburbs studied. Suburb¬ 
anites, cosmopolitan in their interests, tend to be indifferent to the 
preaching of dogma and sectarian specialties. They are less likely 
to become excited over theological than over economic or political 
issues. In the latter fields they recognize certain vested interests 
toward which they seem unable to take the detached and sophisti¬ 
cated attitude that they show toward their church and community. 

What has been said applies particularly to the leading cathedral¬ 
like churches, which at times serve as the voice of the community 
on moral and religious matters. It should not be assumed that 
these strong, efficient churches of the intelligentsia are the sole 
representatives of organized religion in the residential suburb. 
They are, however, the conspicuous ones, which symbolize sub¬ 
urban religious life. The “ second ” and “ third ” churches make 
no effort to reach the whole town but are content to serve the 
families within one of the suburb’s local communities. They 
may have a membership of two to five hundred or even a thousand. 
A pastor of one such congregation remarked that “ for many 
earnest persons the sense of friendship is stronger and the opportu¬ 
nity for service better ” in a small than in a large church. These 
institutions are essential if the masses of people, particularly the 
children, in many portions of the suburb are to be reached. Build¬ 
ings and also budgets are smaller than for the prominent churches; 
the program is simpler and more in accord with the typical schedule 
of religious activities in a commercial city. 

“ West of the tracks ” there are other churches which serve 
their own distinctive population groups. The Roman Catholic 
institutions, because of the parish system, efficient organization, 
and freedom from sectarian competition, are usually large in 
membership and housed in beautiful and impressive buildings. 
Lutheran, Evangelical, Free Methodist, and kindred societies, 
springing either from a northern European or a rural American 


230 


City and Church in Transition 

background, are also frequently located in lower-rent areas. If 
Negroes live in the suburb they and their churches will generally be 
found in the poorest districts. Institutions of the two latter groups 
may be strong and well organized; the majority are weak and 
ineffective. 

Very few bilingual or institutional churches or missions are 
located in a residential suburb, for this is not their natural habitat. 
Those which were formerly bilingual are conducting practically 
all of their work in English, for they found that use of the foreign 
language tended to alienate the young people. Occasionally a 
small racial colony established by immigrants who have come to 
this country since the turn of the century will be located in one of 
these suburbs and will have its own religious organization. Such 
societies are ordinarily minuscule and, from the standpoint of the 
suburb, insignificant. 

Religious Patterns in Selected Residential Suburbs 

In the northeastern portion of the United States both cities 
and suburbs are older and, because of this fact, present a pattern 
slightly different from that obtaining in other sections of the 
country. In them the Roman Catholic Church is more prominent 
than in the suburbs farther west. This is because the northeastern 
states, with their rapidly expanding industries, caught the first 
flood of central and southern European immigration in the middle 
of the nineteenth century. The descendants of many of these, now 
native-born of native-born parents, have acquired economic and 
social status similar to that of the “ old ” families. As a result 
there is a larger Roman Catholic population (approximately half 
of all church members in Newton are Catholic) in such suburbs 
than is to be found in exclusive residential areas farther to the 
west. 

Established by some of the old-stock families from Boston early 
in the seventeenth century, Newton has always been a “ better 
class ” community. It has served as a superior residential suburb 
of Boston ever since 1833 when the Boston and Worcester rail- 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 231 

road came through. Now with about seventy thousand popula¬ 
tion the city, according to its published statement, “ has no am¬ 
bition to add mere numbers.” Ninety-three per cent of the 
building area is restricted to private residences and there are practi¬ 
cally no apartment houses in the city. It is and intends to remain 
an exclusive suburb. 

Newton has not forgotten its Puritan background and, as in 
other Puritan settlements, the early communal life centered about 
the church. Prestige is still obtained by belonging to one of the 
leading congregations. “ The wealthy social classes on the hill 
drift naturally to the big church.” Almost two-thirds of the 
adults of Newton belong to one of its forty-five churches. 

Newton City is still composed of eleven villages, which are very 
conscious of their identity, with resultant rivalries within the city 
and some lack of general civic spirit. 

There isn’t really a “ community ” here. There used to be, and one 
is growing up again, perhaps. But our members live in three separate 
communities and it is hard to create a new [and additional] unity 
here [at the local church]. 

Perhaps this situation offers an explanation of the small interest 
in the community and its unchurched population shown by the 
ministers who replied to the questionnaire. There is even less evi¬ 
dence of community concern than in the other suburbs studied. 
On the other hand, they opine that both members and nonmem¬ 
bers are socially ambitious for themselves and somewhat com¬ 
placent as far as the underprivileged are concerned. “ Enlarge¬ 
ment of their sympathy with needy peoples all the world around ” 
is one of the most common of ministerial objectives, for these re¬ 
ligious leaders realize that theirs is a “ very privileged city ” and 
like other suburbs somewhat indifferent to the needs of less favored 
groups. 

As one moves farther west he finds a larger proportion of Prot¬ 
estants in residential suburbs, although the same characteristics 
of high economic standards, social prestige, and complacency still 


232 City and Church in Transition 

obtain. Evanston, for example, was from its inception marked 
as a Protestant town, founded by a group of eminent Chicago 
Methodists who also established the university and a theological 
seminary for the denomination. Rapid growth has brought in 
many other population groups, but the Methodist family of 
churches still accounts for almost 12 per cent of the adult popula¬ 
tion, about as many as the Roman Catholic communion. Almost 
one-half of those having church membership are connected with 
one of these two denominations. Ministers think of Evanston as 
a well churched city, but that is chiefly because of the many strong, 
prominent organizations. Actually one-half of the adult citizens 
are without any church connection. A disproportionately large 
number of these live in the apartment house area which adjoins 
Chicago. Here, as elsewhere, there is little other than verbal and 
formal effort to reach the unchurched. Ministers meet for an oc¬ 
casional luncheon, to hear a speaker or to plan a union Thanksgiv¬ 
ing or Armistice day service, but evidence of active cooperation 
either within or between denominations is meager. 

As in other residential suburbs, “ the many competing interests 
of a well favored community and the natural conservatism of upper 
middle class people ” baffle a minister who seeks to make the 
church central in the lives of his parishioners and to socialize their 
thinking. Nevertheless Evanston is a churchgoing town and on 
Sunday morning — except in summer — there is a veritable pro¬ 
cession to the doors of the sanctuaries. The ministers of the lead¬ 
ing churches are regarded with deference and their opinions on 
social issues influence community action. 

Little mention is made of the university by ministers. Yet it 
does exercise a leavening influence in the community, and is to a 
degree responsible for one of the chief items in the creed of thou¬ 
sands of Evanstonians: “ I will be liberal and socially minded.” 
Too often, however, this resolution dissolves upon the discovery 
that a Negro family has moved into a house two blocks away. 
When in a meeting of an interracial organization it was suggested 
that one of the best ways of understanding the viewpoint of an- 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 233 

other cultural group is to mingle with such people socially, a loyal 
member of the organization replied that she was interested in 
studying the Negro, not in associating with him. Much of the 
“ sophisticated liberalism ” in the privileged community is of this 
superficial type. 

In Evanston as in other suburbs there are numerous churches 
which do not appeal to persons of wealth or to the socially am¬ 
bitious. Among these are the smaller community institutions and 
those ministering to nationality or racial groups. The large Negro 
population (one-seventh of the total) accounts for about one-half 
of the churches in Evanston. Many of these are small and have 
come into being as the result of schisms. Several were established 
during the depression period. As one Negro minister remarked: 

If a fellow has had a little preaching experience and cannot get a 
job elsewhere, he may persuade a discontented faction to withdraw 
from another institution and start up a church of his own. 

In its essentials Pasadena is very similar to Newton and Evans¬ 
ton. A few unique characteristics are occasioned by its geographic 
position. As in other western cities, an amazing variety of small 
and eccentric sects flourishes. While most of these have only a 
scanty following, they constitute a thorn in the sides of the minis¬ 
ters of the larger denominations. Some of the “ orthodox ” are 
constantly being lured away by the fantastic advertising, the show¬ 
manship and the claims to peculiar religious insight of these sects. 

In contrast to Los Angeles, two-thirds of whose adult popula¬ 
tion is without any religious affiliation, Pasadena, appealing to a 
more selected and an older group, has only one-third of its adults 
unchurched. In contrast to Newton, only one in five of those 
with some denominational connection is Roman Catholic. 
Practically every Protestant denomination and many a free-lance 
mission are present to take care of the remainder. 

Where climate is a specialty and outdoor life is possible through¬ 
out the year, the churches find the long paved highways, the moun¬ 
tains, beaches and parks to be serious competitors during the 


234 


City and Church in Transition 

Sunday morning hours. Yet in spite of many obstacles organized 
religion is a vital force in the life of Pasadena; it is assumed to be 
the right and proper thing that people hold a membership in some 
congregation. In fact, religion is a strong conventional force in 
every residential suburb which was studied. Whether this will 
continue to be the case in the future is not so readily ascertainable 
for, as ministers in every suburb declare, there is much indifference, 
particularly on the part of the young people. While each city has 
its own distinctive personality and some peculiar difficulties, the 
general objectives and problems confronting organized religion 
which are found in one are evident in all. 

Objectives 

Residential suburbs have more than a normal share of able min¬ 
isters. The outstanding men of each communion gravitate in this 
direction, where Protestantism has its chief strength, where 
churches are worshipful and congregations large, where the com¬ 
munity is made up of people who give direction to the business 
and social life of the metropolis and the nation, and where the 
leaders of tomorrow are being reared. It is not surprising, there¬ 
fore, that unusual insight is shown in the replies of these men. In 
the main they appear free from the local community taboos, preju¬ 
dices and provincialisms. This is evidenced by such a statement 
of objectives as the following: 

To preach, teach and live the life of Christ; to get Christianity 
understood, accepted and embodied in public life; to build a working 
sample of Christian brotherhood; to develop a thoughtful loyalty to 
the church, a social imagination, curiosity and conscience, a better 
technique of religious education; to invade and overcome careless 
paganism in the lives of twentieth century, hurrying people; to relate 
worship more vitally to the inspiration of the vocations, the com¬ 
munity burdens and family life. 

A primary aim among the preachers in the larger churches is 
“ to create a Christian social consciousness,” to liberalize the social 
and economic attitudes of their members who, because of their 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 235 

position in society and their economic status, frequently suffer 
from ethical blind spots. These men are seeking: 

To liberalize a conservative, complacent, well-set-up suburban 
church. 

To develop a Christian conscience on social issues. This is very 
much needed. To get men of means and influence to humbly accept 
each other. 

To create a consciousness of the need for “ social action ” and for 
efforts to bring about world peace. 

This emphasis on broadening the social horizons may almost 
be called typical. Whereas pastors in industrial suburbs are con¬ 
stantly referring to the community and seldom mention world¬ 
wide responsibility, the religious leaders of the residential suburbs 
repeatedly comment on the need for “ world vision ” and speak 
less frequently in terms of local community responsibility. It is 
interesting to speculate to what extent this difference in emphasis 
is due to the status, education, and social background of the 
citizens and to the attitudes and training of the ministers. 

Another objective of the ministers, and perhaps the one about 
which they are most concerned, is to deepen the spiritual life of 
the members. They wish to clarify “ their concepts of God and 
deepen their sense of his nearness and goodness ”; a few stress 
“ conversion and the fundamentals,” but this emphasis is almost 
absent when compared with the stated objectives from other types 
of cities. The preachers desire “ to have a church that is definitely 
spiritual and to have a good social feeling among the members.” 
The keynote is tolerance, sweetness and light, the development 
of “ a truly Christian fellowship among the people of the church.” 
This is in keeping with the more sophisticated attitude of the 
residential suburb, where evangelism makes small appeal to either 
ministers or townsfolk. 


236 


City and Church in Transition 


Problems and Programs 

While most members of the profession look on the minister in 
a residential suburb with a measure of envy, as one who has 
attained, he himself is often overwhelmed with a sense of inade¬ 
quacy as he seeks to bring the message of religion into a world 
of “ cultured paganism.” The inroads made by the population 
from the big metropolis accentuate “ the problem of preserving the 
high ideals of a residential community which have obtained for 
many years.” The proximity of the big city and its bright light 
areas, anonymity, rapid transportation, weakened community con¬ 
trols, and the adulation of success, especially financial success, 
tend to undermine the traditions formerly emphasized within the 
residential community. 

The people of the exclusive suburb have not only larger mate¬ 
rial resources but also more abundant opportunities for self-expres¬ 
sion, and apparently many of them feel less in need of the church. 
The latter must take its place among the numerous organizations 
competing for the time and financial support of the residents. To 
maintain a distinctive position for the church in the community 
is no simple task. Religious societies are driven by the same forces 
and tend to be rated according to the same criteria (the size and 
type of membership, equipment and resources) as the women’s 
club or the chamber of commerce. It is against this background 
that the preachers insist on the unique position of the church and 
point out the “ distinction between the church, the teacher of faith, 
and other cultural, philanthropic or merely cursory discussion 
groups.” 

They complain that even the members take the church for 
granted, sending their children to it for instruction and then giving 
little financial or moral support. They crave “ the cooperation 
of parents and teachers in the church school.” In no other place 
does it seem quite so difficult to secure volunteer church school 
teachers. Even the parents feel that there are too many claims on 
their time and they would rather use their talents in other ways. 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 237 

Social status is not gained through teaching a class of boys or girls, 
but is associated with the chairmanship of the program com¬ 
mittee of the young women’s guild. Many who are able to sing or 
speak in public blench at the thought of being responsible for the 
behavior and instruction of twelve children for one hour a week. 

Another important problem vexing the suburban ministry is 
irregularity of attendance. In city after city, ministers deplore 
“ the lukewarmness, the lack of a sense of need of public worship, 
resulting in absence from services.” 

Indifference characterizes about two-thirds of the members. They 
are but nominal members. 

The majority of the men in this church work in New York City 
and in good weather use Sundays for recreation. 

The many attractions of southern California take the families to 
the mountains and beaches on Sunday. 

Closely related is the necessity of integrating the people who 
become members of the church. 

Our chief problem seems to be to assimilate new members, to make 
them feel at home in our fellowship, and to give them something to 
do that they can do in order to maintain their interest. 

This difficulty is accentuated when the older members of the 
church “ wish to keep it a family affair.” Several pastors find that 
this tendency to “ operate on a closed-shop basis ” increases the 
task of developing and retaining the interest of prospective ad¬ 
herents, since “ as soon as this becomes evident to new people, 
they are lost to us.” Assimilating newcomers is a poser for the 
minister when the church has a membership of two thousand or 
more; at the same time it is less easy to persuade new members to 
assume a share of the responsibility for personal leadership and 
financial support. Some ministers also find a lack of interest on 
the part of their membership in denominational activities. Their 


238 City and Church in Transition 

people will work for the local organization, but have no sense of 
obligation to the national body. 

Another interesting problem relating to membership appears to 
be peculiar to the residential suburb and the resort city. Men and 
women will frequently take full advantage of the services of the 
church over a long period of time, without formally joining the 
society or assuming any of the responsibilities of membership. 
This seems to be particularly true in the women’s organizations. 
Evidently many persons regard the church in much the same light 
as the park system, as a public institution which each is entitled 
to enjoy without incurring any particular obligation. One pastor 
remarks: “ Our activities are participated in by members and non¬ 
members in about equal proportions.” Others state that many 
nonmembers attend but cannot be persuaded, indeed have never 
intended, to join the church. A survey made in one suburb showed 
that as many as 40 per cent of the worshipers at the central Prot¬ 
estant churches were nonmembers. In contrast, in the Roman 
Catholic communion practically all attendants were also mem¬ 
bers, the maximum proportion of nonmembers who attended in any 
of the four Catholic churches being 15 per cent. 

The churches in apartment house sections of the residential 
suburbs are confronted with a problem of their own. People from 
the city move into these multi-family dwellings and bring their 
desire for anonymity with them. Many are averse to developing 
any local contacts. They desire “ freedom.” Apartment house 
dwellers, particularly those in two- and three-room units, tend to 
be young people; frequently both husband and wife are employed. 
In this event few other than sleeping hours are spent in the home. 
The majority regard a call by a parish visitor as an intrusion. On 
the other hand, some are very appreciative of such a contact and, 
once rapport has been established, acknowledge the loneliness from 
which they have suffered. As yet, however, the church has made 
only a mediocre success of reaching these “ cliff dwellers.” 

The problem of the relationship between the large and the small 
church persists in suburbs just as it does in other centers. Many 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 239 

suburban residents retain their affiliation with a metropolitan 
church and sometimes attend there irregularly. In other cases 
they may worship in a local institution but avoid any specific 
responsibility on the plea that they “ belong downtown.” Another 
pattern is the conflict between the strong central churches and the 
smaller community churches within the suburb. A list of new 
members in the “ first ” church often contains the names of persons 
living in the natural parish of a community church of the same 
denomination, and perhaps even transferring from it. One minis¬ 
ter declares: 

I think there is a tendency for the smaller churches to feel the 
competition with the larger and more affluent ones, which have pro¬ 
grams on a more elaborate scale. The auto, of course, makes the 
difference of a couple of miles of no consequence. I have people in 
my church who have no real business there, and people in my com¬ 
munity go elsewhere because of some “ friend ” connection. 

This situation inevitably involves a measure of tension, even 
though it be restrained and polite. No solution can be reached 
until there is a frank understanding among the ministers, and 
also an acknowledgment of parish responsibility on the part of 
members as well as preachers. Obviously, Protestants will not be 
assigned to attend a local church, nor should they be denied admis¬ 
sion to the “ first ” church. The minister in the larger organization 
can, however, afford to suggest to newcomers who mention the 
possibility of joining his congregation that there might be value in 
their aligning themselves with the smaller church located near 
their homes. In similar vein, he can discourage rather than en¬ 
courage the migration of leaders from the smaller societies. 

“ The wholesale shunning of the church by college graduates ” 
and the fact that “ not many younger members are coming along ” 
bother many a minister in the residential suburb. “ How best to 
reach the thousands of students and to minister to hundreds of 
young married people who have moved into nearby apartments 
and are not yet assimilated into the community life ” is a problem 
that is calling forth the best efforts of those who have an insight 


240 City and Church in Transition 

into the seriousness of this situation. It is obvious to them that if 
the number of young people entering the church continues at the 
present low point for two decades, organized religion will suffer a 
serious membership shortage from which it will not soon recover. 
This problem is not restricted to the residential suburb and de¬ 
serves the best attention and the united effort of the whole church. 

While the program of the suburban church is well developed, it 
presents few elements which have not already been considered. 
Most distinctive is the manner in which it is conducted and the 
richness of personal and material resources. For the children 
there is the usual program of scouting, athletic activities and social 
events, in addition to “ scientifically correct ” facilities for reli¬ 
gious education. In only a few instances is there a vacation church 
school program. For adults there are clubs for women and men, 
mothers’ circles, study groups, church night programs, vesper 
musicales, dramatics, forums, dinners, and other entertainments. 
Some churches carry as an important part of their work the sup¬ 
port of a mission, institutional church, or social settlement in 
the metropolis, furnishing part of the personal leadership for the 
undertaking as well as the financial underwriting. It is only the 
exceptional organization, unfortunately, which makes any evident, 
concrete effort to reach the unchurched in its own community or to 
relate the more prosperous people of the suburbs to a project 
serving an underprivileged area. 

Interdenominational Relations 

Few are the evidences of active and effective cooperation among 
the churches (reported by only three out of fifty-seven ministers), 
and in these instances no specific accomplishments are cited. A 
common report is, “ We have no competition between the 
churches,” no reference being made to cooperative activities. On 
the other hand, there is little bitterness or enmity. As a minister 
in a church of four hundred reports: 

Competition is sharp but healthy and brotherly. If we can’t make 
the grade it is our own fault. 


The Church in the Residential Suburb 241 

Frequent, however, are the reports of overchurching. Numer¬ 
ous unpleasant situations exist because of the lack of foresight and 
planning at an earlier date, even though no one now on the field is 
to blame. 

It is just the problem, as I see it in my community, of too many 
ineffective churches rather than a few strong ones. 

While there is no open conflict, yet it exists. We have a Methodist 
and an Episcopalian church [in addition to the writer’s] in our sec¬ 
tion which can really support but one church. The question is which 
one! 

Yes, with churches about every half mile in every direction, and 
with all kinds of “ come-outer-missions ” in between, there is com¬ 
petition. 

Occasionally there is a definite “ unfriendly act.” A church 
that failed to retain its hold in one area, because of the influx of 
a new population group, relocates in another and more congenial 
section of the city, even though other churches have been caring 
adequately for the local religious needs for many years. 

Three years ago the X church moved to this hill section of M. For¬ 
merly they were in a business section bordering on an Italian neigh¬ 
borhood. It was a good move for them, but now there are two 
Protestant churches one block from each other. Both can exist for 
the next fifteen or twenty years, but two out of every three families 
are either Jewish or Catholic. We now compete for each new Protes¬ 
tant family. 

Illustrations could be multiplied. This unseemly competition is 
as extravagant, as superficially polite but subtly bitter, as an arma¬ 
ment race between two nations. 

Probably much of the difficulty arises from the fact that minis¬ 
ters and churches do not realize the full effect of their present 
policies. For example, one large institution which supports an 
interdenominational mission, gives money to an Italian church of 
another communion, and makes contributions to the budgets of 


242 City and Church in Transition 

three Negro churches, also has as its pride a great “ Men’s Com¬ 
munity Bible Class ” which draws supporters from many of the 
other churches, thus creating a problem for their ministers. 

There appear to be two basic difficulties in interdenominational 
relationships in the suburbs. One is lack of awareness; the other is 
individualism, which may also go by the name of indifference. 

Yes, some competition, although polite and gracious. Too much 
money spent on plants which duplicate overmuch. 

There is no mass front on any community problem on the part of 
Protestant churches; denominational competition is keen; the city is 
overchurched; there is little fellowship between churches of one de¬ 
nomination. Yet many of the ministers are quite progressive. 

This last observation, that ministers who count themselves both 
liberal in their social viewpoint and progressive in their organiza¬ 
tion are at the same time basically individualists in their planning, 
should give pause to those who expect any rapid increase in the 
influence of the Protestant church in the suburb. As it now is, 
churches frequently work at cross-purposes to one another, main¬ 
taining costly edifices and programs which are not in line with 
community needs or which duplicate one another. The effect is to 
make organized religion more expensive than it needs to be and this 
frightens away some prospective members. With discernment, one 
minister offers this far-reaching proposition and question: 

There is a problem relating to our whole order. Present Protes¬ 
tantism is individualistic, with loosely organized authority. Can its 
freedoms be retained in our growing collective society, and the institu¬ 
tion survive? 


14 


The Church in the Resort City 


W HETHER it be summer or winter, the play towns of 
America are always in the news; the resort city lives 
by publicity which, filled with glowing promises and 
pictures of bathing beauties, offers wearied workers release from 
the humdrum and tension of daily living. When the tourist arrives, 
be it at Miami or Atlantic City, he feels freed from many of the 
conventional restraints and is prepared to enter wholeheartedly 
into the holiday spirit. He responds enthusiastically to the festive 
appearance of the streets and shops furbished by the townsfolk, 
whose tedious business it is to make every day appear to be a 
gala occasion. 

The average visitor does not realize that underneath the surface 
of this carnival atmosphere the citizens of the community have 
many a problem and worry, are laboring assiduously, figuring 
costs, operating on narrow margins, watching the weather reports 
to see if the season will be long or short, catering to tastes which 
they may detest, and perhaps going home at night with an aching 
head or a discouraged spirit. For them the play business is a 
serious affair; it is their bread and butter. The strain of earning a 
living is even greater than in other cities, for the harvesttime is 
short and the public fickle. To understand the resort city one 
must recognize that it contains two populations, with two different 
outlooks on life and with widely different attitudes toward each 
other. He must also see that what is fun for one may be hard work 
for the other. Only the townsfolk understand how much of un¬ 
happiness there may be in the play business. 

243 



244 


City and Church in Transition 

Tourists come and go. A week, a month, or a season, and they 
have returned home. They have brought nothing but their money 
and their desire for entertainment and, when they go, leave only an 
empty room and a few dollars. Transiency! Twelve million visi¬ 
tors in and out of Atlantic City within one year! People who go to 
San Diego tend to stay longer than those visiting Atlantic City; yet 
even there the postmaster estimates that a fourth of the population 
moves every ninety days. 

Since the resort city must ever be on the alert to cater to the 
whims of its visitors, the universal tendency is to relax social and 
moral restraint. In every city studied there was a constant com¬ 
plaint concerning the laxity of community morals. However, the 
concessionaire replies, “ We are just giving the public what it 
wants. If we suppress gambling and vice, tourists will go else¬ 
where and our community will starve.” Control of the civic life 
tends to slip into the hands of those who are “ broadminded and 
tolerant, and who bring more visitors to town.” It is difficult, 
because of community lethargy and the pressure of the tourist busi¬ 
ness, “ to try to persuade men of character and ability to serve at 
public tasks, all of which are now handled by mercenary morons.” 

Effects of Resort Life on Organized Religion 

It is not surprising that in such a setting the church is confronted 
by almost insuperable obstacles in its effort to develop a Christian 
community. The institutions of religion, always influenced by 
the way in which people earn their living, are more affected by the 
economic life of the resort city than by that of any other urban 
center. The impact of the economic order in a one-industry town 
tends to be greater than in a city with diversified pursuits. But 
where that one industry is catering to strangers and transients, it 
influences the family and social life far more intimately than does 
the manufacturing of automobiles in Dearborn or railroading in 
Altoona. In the resort city all members of the family are in the 
midst of this industry most of the time. It tends to color every 


The Church in the Resort City 245 

detail of life. The report of a minister in Atlantic City makes 
this clear: 

This is a city devoted to entertaining millions of pleasure seekers 
and vacationists. Sunday is our busiest commercial day, and the 
children leave church school for Sunday employment. Everything 
is open on Sunday. Saloons are everywhere. The numbers game 
(a gambling racket where the stake may be as low as one cent, and 
children are encouraged to participate) is being played. 

To train children in the commonly accepted virtues and ethics 
of the Christian faith is far from easy where “ the gambling and 
pleasure seeking spirit ” is omnipresent, is cultivated by civic 
leaders and perhaps even by the children’s own parents. A pastor 
in Miami writes: 

This is a commercial amusement center with visitors on a Roman 
holiday. A gambling center, with horse races, dog tracks and winter 
sports. 

Others make a similar report: 

Gambling is present in all its forms. The wealthy set false stand¬ 
ards of “ a good time,” and the rest try to follow. A large number 
come down here for a “ moral vacation.” 

Where “ the tourist trade is placed above morals,” where cheap 
commercialized amusements flourish, and where there is much 
flagrant consumption of alcoholic beverages, the church has a 
battle on its hands if it wishes to maintain its own integrity. If 
it challenges these accepted municipal standards it cannot expect 
to be popular with most of the citizenry. In such a situation the 
church is struggling against the basic economic structure of the 
community. More or less acute conflict between the ministers 
over theological and social issues has not strengthened the moral 
authority of organized religion. 

The constantly shifting visiting population is matched by con¬ 
tinuous changes of residence on the part of the “ natives.” San 


246 City and Church in Transition 

Diego is described as “ one of the most mobile communities in the 
U. S. A. with a restless and transient character.” In like manner 
the floating population of Miami presents a problem for the 
church. One of its ministers writes: 

Not over ten per cent of my active members have been in the church 
for ten years. And when they get on their feet financially they will 
move to another section. A large number are uncertain as to the 
length of time they will be here. 

With population in flux, the minister and his volunteer lay asso¬ 
ciates must work very hard in order to keep the church from losing 
ground. They understand what the Red Queen meant when she 
told Alice: “ Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can 
do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, 
you must run at least twice as fast as that! ” 

In the rush season the local people cannot attend church regu¬ 
larly, for all the stores, restaurants, and amusement places are 
open seven days a week. This “ leaves little opportunity for 
activities in and for the church.” In such a resort as Atlantic City 
it may be easier to have a strong Sunday school program than a 
large church service, because the local people can attend a class 
early in the morning and then be free to start the day’s work by 
the time the vacationists are beginning to stroll along the board¬ 
walk. One church of five hundred members has over eight hundred 
attending its church school, which is staffed by seventy persons. 
It is more difficult to obtain a morning congregation. 

If therefore the church in the resort city is to have an active pro¬ 
gram in the tourist season it will need to serve the transients, 
provided it can snatch a bit of their time. A logical consequent 
is that practically every one of the thirty ministers who reported 
on the resort cities stated his program was for the community, and 
mentioned the everlasting effort to serve the visitors, “ the large 
floating population who are church orphans.” Many of these 
vacationists, particularly in Miami and San Diego, are loyal 
church members back home and are in the habit of attending 


247 


The Church in the Resort City 

regularly. During the eight-month season in Miami there are 
more strangers than members in attendance at the central 
churches, some of which have as many as three duplicate services 
on Sunday morning and two in the evening in order to accommo¬ 
date all of the worshipers. Not a few of the ministers have dis¬ 
covered that this is the best time of the year to raise the local 
budget and stage the every-member canvass. However, these brief 
contacts and “ the constant shifting of population make it difficult 
to do [an effective] educational work with the people.” 

After the outlanders depart their hosts relax and use the rockers 
on the front porch for themselves. It is in this leisure season that 
the natives are able to patronize their own institutions and a num¬ 
ber of the churches do their most effective, abiding work, in spite 
of the fact that attendance is much smaller. To be sure, many who 
have been unable to attend because of the pressure of work feel 
entitled to a vacation in the slack season, and consequently are 
absent from church the year round. 

The salubrious climate which is so widely advertised as one of 
the chief attractions at the resort is not an unmixed blessing for 
the local church: 

This is a beach community, with the usual beach attitude of “ rest.” 

San Diego is an extremely popular recreational city. The benign 
climate attracts many elderly and physically incapacitated people 
and acts as a sedative on younger people. 

Whether it is a matter of climate or the judicious choice of 
rewarding fields, the fact is that such cities as Miami and San 
Diego have more than the usual number of free-lance sects and 
esoteric cults. A minister in Miami complains that “ mushroom 
sects and revivalists who winter (only) with us and much ballyhoo 
by spells are detrimental.” These unlicensed sky-pilots and 
hierophants, who claim special revelations and unique insight into 
the universe, have discovered that the visiting throngs with leisure 
on their hands are a field ripe for the harvest. Untangling sacred 
mysteries provides an interesting occupation, a certain status, and 


248 City and Church in Transition 

also a fair income. It is as evident that some are charlatans as that 
others are sincere and devout; but whether they be the one or the 
other, each attracts his following from the idle crowd and causes 
a measure of perplexity to the leaders of the regular denomina¬ 
tions. “ Miami has much second-coming-of-Christ religion. 
Worldliness dominates their living and otherworldliness their 
thinking! ” 


Objectives of the Churches 

Every minister who is awake to the life of his city, with its 
hopes and fears, its nobility and vice, will take these factors into 
consideration as he formulates the scope and pattern of his pro¬ 
gram. Indeed a statement of objectives is a more or less frank rec¬ 
ognition of goals as yet unattained. Some ecclesiastics present a 
statement of objectives, phrased in conventional and shopworn 
terms, which on the surface may mean much or nothing and which 
has no apparent relationship to the social milieu. On the other 
hand, many a religious leader, keenly aware of the peculiar prob¬ 
lems of his people, adapts his goals and therefore his program to 
their needs. This sense of responsibility is evident in the following 
statement from Atlantic City: 

My objectives are to awaken new loyalty among older members; 
to construct a youth program making the church the center of in¬ 
terest and activity; and to build a unity of faith among all groups 
worshiping here. 

This man is obviously aware of the many distracting and often 
antisocial and immoral pulls exerted by the community, knows 
the effect of disillusionment on the older people and the danger 
that youth will grow up with a cynical secular attitude toward the 
whole of life. He has the wit to see that unity of faith can and 
must be forged out of diversity of backgrounds. 

A pastor in San Diego has discovered the importance of indi¬ 
vidualizing his members and of satisfying the desire for fellowship 
in a world of mobility: 


The Church in the Resort City 249 

I find many lonely people. We attempt to contact these and es¬ 
tablish friendships for them through visitation and social groups. 

Men and women, particularly in our urban society and even more 
especially in the anonymity of the resort town, are eager to be 
thought of as persons and not simply as units in a crowd. The 
problem of transiency increases the burden on the leader but 
makes this individualizing of members and constituents even more 
necessary because of people’s loneliness. Pastoral work, always 
difficult, becomes more important when it is harder to perform. 

The resort city is exacting in its demands on the minister and 
at the same time brings relatively few rewards (not monetary but 
personal) for service. The transiency of the people, the organized 
civic support of activities which the church opposes, the callousness 
which results from the wholesale undermining of generally ac¬ 
cepted social and moral standards, and the few apparent results 
from years of labor are sometimes disheartening even to the most 
optimistic. One speaks for others when he writes: 

My objective can be little else than to maintain a place of worship 
in a downtown location in a resort hotel city, and through the Sunday 
school and similar organizations seek to build Christian character. 

In every type of city, including the resort, some among the 
clergy evidently are uncertain as to the functions of the church 
and have difficulty in stating them even in conventional termi¬ 
nology. Speaking of this group, which fortunately appears to be 
small, a preacher from Miami states: 

Some ministers do not seem to know where they are going. They 
have no goal. They are earnest, sincere, fine men, but at a loss as to 
what results they must work for. 

This sententious remark indicates a condition which is serious 
enough in a residential suburb but which is almost fatal in a resort 
city. There, if a minister lacks certitude, few people will arise to 
give him either direction or courage. 


City and Church in Transition 


250 


Problems and Programs 

There are a few millstones always around the necks of religious 
leaders in resort cities: transiency, the “ season,” and community 
immorality. Some of the most vexing perplexities, however, have 
to do with the local membership. 

1. During the period when the vacationists are present local 
members are irregular in church attendance and the customary, 
homelike church atmosphere is hard to preserve. The minister 
lacks the support of familiar workers and congregation. 

It is difficult to maintain an adequate spiritual ministry to members 
who are overworked and nonattendant during “ the season,” when 
tourists are in the majority in attendance and in activity. 

The rank and file of the members “ do not know the meaning of 
true participation within the organization,” at the very time that 
the church desperately needs dependable leaders who will assist 
the minister in serving the flood of strangers which inundates 
them. Time, leadership ability, and also consecration are neces¬ 
sary for the most effective work in any local church, and these are 
the very qualities which seem to be scarce in a resort city. One 
minister laments “ the lack of qualified leaders with an amount 
of optimism which will help them successfully to launch and carry 
through a program.” 

With the distractions, furore and fatigue to which they are 
subjected, the townspeople have little energy left for the church. 
“ Putting flesh on dry bones, inspiring a consistent loyalty,” is one 
minister’s way of formulating this problem. In the off-season it 
is necessary to “ revive morale by adequate spiritual ministry and 
pastoral work,” restoring assurance and a feeling of security and 
stability which in this world of rapid change the people desper¬ 
ately need. 

2. Of almost equal moment, particularly to the churches near 
the heart of the city in the hotel and rooming house districts, is 
the ministry to the transient. Ministers realize that “ the congre- 


251 


The Church in the Resort City 

gation invariably contains all creeds,” and “ to offer an acceptable 
and worthy program for many visitors ” is an exacting as well as a 
challenging responsibility. People, even though they be on vaca¬ 
tion, do come to the church with spiritual hungers which must be 
satisfied. Particularly in such a city as San Diego are there many 
religiously minded visitors, among them thousands accustomed to 
an evangelistic program, who are as ready to attend a service on 
Tuesday as on Sunday. All days are alike on vacation, and the 
transients frequently want something to do. A San Diego pastor, 
recognizing this situation, asserts: 

My contention and conviction is that a downtown church should 
have a meeting every night for the preaching of the gospel. 

Obviously it would not be feasible for all central churches to have 
such a schedule of meetings, though one may do so to advantage. 
However, not all who attend the church come for the worship 
services. One pastor reports that he is “ unable to secure much 
participation of nonmembers except for programs of entertain¬ 
ment.” For them the church is another friendly concession, with 
no admission fee. 

It is no simple task for the church to satisfy the needs and 
desires of transients and at the same time carry forward the regular 
activities, the religious education of the children, the more intimate 
social fellowship of the local members. Consequently it will re¬ 
quire unusual tact, forbearance, and ingenuity on the part of min¬ 
ister and laymen if the many and varied demands on the church 
are to be met. 

3. Struggling to accommodate both members and transients, the 
church of the resort city seems to have little success in reaching the 
thousands of unchurched who live there the year round. This is 
in part occasioned by preoccupation with the current program and 
the general temper of the community. It is also partly due to the 
restlessness of the natives, many of whom change residence every 
year or every six months. Frequently the children, if not the 
parents, can be reached. 


252 City and Church in Transition 

We have a downtown church with an excellent church school made 
up largely of children from non-Christian homes — 

writes one minister. Even newcomers who plan to make the resort 
their permanent home are slow to join the church of their denomi¬ 
nation. A Protestant Episcopal rector in Miami is convinced that 
there are eight thousand Episcopalians in the city, yet the three 
churches of that denomination report a combined membership of 
less than three thousand. Many of those who are unaccounted for 
have doubtless left their membership in some northern congrega¬ 
tion. In any event, they have not sought a local church home. 
The story could be repeated elsewhere. In San Diego two-thirds 
of the adult population are without any religious affiliation. 

4. A problem which perplexes many a minister is how to secure 
the participation of young people. It seems particularly true of 
the central churches that there is “ a preponderance of the aged 
in the membership and a lack of young married families.” The 
elders are much in evidence, partly because there are more of them 
in resort cities and partly because they find greater enjoyment in 
the conventional type of church program, which is designed chiefly 
for persons who wish passively to listen or sit and observe. The 
maintenance of Townsend clubs by several San Diego churches is 
mute evidence of this catering to the whims of the elderly. To 
such a program young people, interested in action, do not respond. 

5. The difficulty of securing effective members in the resort 
aggravates the problem of the relationship between the downtown 
and the community church. In all types of city the central 
churches draw many of their dependable members and leaders 
from the smaller institutions. In the resort, because of high 
population mobility, the practice is even more common. Its 
“ necessity ” is indicated in the statement of the pastor of a “ first ” 
church: 

There is no particular competition, except such as exists where the 
downtown churches must draw people who live closer to some other 
church, in many instances. 


The Church in the Resort City 253 

The reaction of the pastor who serves one of the small churches, 
though in another city, is equally lucid: 

The downtown churches are heartless relative to smaller neighbor¬ 
hood churches. They have more money, hire musical attractions, etc. 
They are able to hire special workers to call upon people within the 
shadow of my own church. 

6. A problem of an entirely different type also confronts the 
church. The turbid moral atmosphere of the community does not 
facilitate the development of Christian conduct. Saloons, gam¬ 
bling, vice, shady business ethics, the sale of shoddy merchandise, 
the utter disregard of conventional Sunday observance, create a 
fog in which it is difficult to see clearly and in which the churches 
themselves may become confused. 

I think that many of our churches have hurt our general cause 
by their types of program, i. e., card parties, dances, carnivals with 
roulette wheels, games of chance. Reputable businessmen lose their 
respect for such churches and we are all affected by it. 

7. San Diego, with its naval and military bases, has a problem 
all its own. With a reported twenty-two thousand men posted 
there, 

the city tends to be dominated by navy morality and navy philosophy 
of life, partly because it derives its chief income from the navy. 

A number of ministers recognize that the presence of thousands 
of more or less foot-loose and carefree men who “ have little sense 
of community or church responsibility ” tends to interfere with the 
stability and normality of civilian life. 

“ Creating the belief that the city is not dependent on more 
navy appropriations in order to survive ” is no small problem for 
a peace-minded minister in San Diego. Several men reported that 
“ the ministers take little interest in peace work, due to the large 
navy population.” Here again religion seems to be tied up, for 
better or for worse, with the way in which people earn their living. 
It may be added that the ministers of the smaller churches appear 
more aware of these issues than those in the larger institutions. 


254 City and Church in Transition 

In addition to these more or less unique problems which con¬ 
front organized religious life in the resort city there are also the 
usual administrative and financial puzzles which baffle the min¬ 
ister and his associates in the commercial city — how to meet the 
budget and pay off the debt, how to enlist the support and attend¬ 
ance of parents who send their children to the church school, how 
to overcome the indifference of church members and secure a more 
eager participation of young people in the services, how to provide 
effective preaching and religious education, and how to keep the 
machinery running. These, together with the effort to serve 
the transient and combat the lethargy and nonmoral attitude of the 
community, appear so to pre-empt the time and energy of the pas¬ 
tor that little emphasis can be given to the creating of a Christian 
world view, a stress which was particularly noticeable in residential 
suburbs. There is a minority who have at heart this wider task 
but, as one of them has stated, “ the ministerial association is 
fine so long as live economic and world issues are avoided.” 

The program of the church in the resort follows the general 
pattern for the institutions in the commercial city. There are, 
however, fewer elements designed for children (few Scout troops) 
and more elements for the adults, such as free lectures, musicales 
and clubs. Occasional churches sponsor features deserving of 
mention. One has established a “ Life Guidance Center,” with 
separate offices in a downtown building and with a professionally 
trained woman in charge. She has been able to assist many indi¬ 
viduals in untangling some of their life problems. The same 
church also conducts a home for mothers of illegitimate babies. 
Here the women are cared for and aided in making a readjustment; 
a careful child-placing and adoption service is operated in connec¬ 
tion. As the pastor notes, “ this work is growing and is very im¬ 
portant.” (A sign of the life of a disorganized and restless com¬ 
munity !) Several churches are open throughout the day and serve 
as community centers where transients and others may drop in for 
a period of time. One small institution is making a deliberate 
effort to secure the participation of Mexicans and Chinese in its 


The Church in the Resort City 255 

services, but generally there seems to be an attitude of indifference 
toward the Negro and foreign nationality groups. 

In a number of instances a determined effort has been made to 
develop a program for youth. For example, one church has a recre¬ 
ational and social program each Tuesday evening for boys and girls 
from seven to sixteen years of age. On Wednesday evenings older 
young people are welcomed to a planned program at the parish 
house. There is also a junior choir, with a paid director who can 
hold the interest of children. A number of nonmembers attend 
these various functions. Another minister has specialized in wood¬ 
craft and nature study clubs for the boys and girls of the neigh¬ 
borhood. He has also been active in securing an appropriation for 
the development of a small park near by, where it is much needed. 
There is great variety in the programs of these churches, but the 
institutional and community features are the exception rather 
than the rule. 


Interdenominational Relations 

While one minister announces, “ I feel that our interchurch co¬ 
operation and comradeship are of a high order,” and several point 
out that there is no overt competition between the leading denomi¬ 
nations, the replies of most ministers in resort cities give the im¬ 
pression that noncooperation exists generally. Many are annoyed 
by the little “ iconoclastic ” sects which are continually sniping off 
members from the larger and more staid organizations. Indeed, 
there appears to be much crossing of denominational lines even 
among the established churches. The rector of an Episcopal 
church reports that in his last confirmation class of forty-five per¬ 
sons there were “ Roman Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, and 
Scientists,” and adds that this was an average class. While this 
indiscriminate corralling may irritate leaders in other commun¬ 
ions, it should be evident that had they kept alive the active inter¬ 
est of these errant ones, the latter would never have left the home 
fold. 

This raises the question of the ethics of interchurch competition 


256 City and Church in Transition 

and also of “ proselyting.” It is worthy of note that ministers 
who are winning converts from various denominations think of 
this as “ salvage work ” made necessary by the inefficiency, poor 
program, or lack of spiritual zeal of other institutions; to them it 
is not competition. Those who lose members by this method, on 
the other hand, regard it in an entirely different light and use the 
opprobrious epithet “ proselyting.” This is a problem in ethics 
to which members of the ministerial profession might well give 
serious thought. One pastor approaches the question from a some¬ 
what different angle: 

I have always enjoyed the good will of my “ church neighbors ” 
but nevertheless I feel that competition . . . exists. This is not, I am 
sure, because professional ethics is lacking, but because under the 
circumstances competition is inevitable and unescapable. This has 
concerned me much of late, since many pulpits, perhaps very correctly, 
condemn competition for private gain in economic life. 

Overchurching, which is one variety of competition, may be 
illustrated by the work among the Mexicans in San Diego. In 
1930 there were, according to federal statistics, 9,266 Mexicans 
in San Diego, the large majority of whom are cared for by the 
Roman Catholic Church. Yet twenty-nine Protestant missions 
of one sort or another are reported to be working among these 
people. The pastor of one writes informingly: 

There is a very small Nazarene Mexican church and a very small 
Mexican Free Methodist church, a Mexican Catholic church, two 
Pentecostal missions, a Seventh Day Adventist clinic with some Mexi¬ 
can work, a Mexican Baptist church, also a Mormon mission (all 
within a half-mile radius, others are near by). Our church is the 
largest in membership (77). 

The responses of certain ministers on the question of interchurch 
relationships give an impression of the disunity of organized re¬ 
ligion which is appalling: 

A decided lack of harmony among the Protestant churches locally, 
a minority group (three denominations included) maintaining their 


The Church in the Resort City 257 

own association because of their super-fundamental theological atti¬ 
tude and holding no fellowship with the majority. Not so good! 

However, the conservatives are not the only ones who are aggres¬ 
sive and pugilistic in their attitude. Half humorously a liberal 
pastor boasts: 

I am engaged in a knock-down drag-out fight with a scion of John 
Knox across the way. He is leading on points to date, but my knock¬ 
out punch is still in reserve. I am awaiting the bell for the next 
round. 

A study of the resort city would cause one to assume that here 
if anywhere, under the pressure of many character-destroying in¬ 
fluences in the community, the forces of Christianity would be 
compelled to drop their internecine strife and conciliate one an¬ 
other in order that all energies might be devoted to the develop¬ 
ment of a Christian community. Yet here, as in every type of 
city studied, the forces which divide are much more in evidence 
than those which unite, and indifference or even antagonism seems 
more common than harmony and active cooperation. A sociologist 
would suggest that much of this ill will is due to steady insistence, 
chiefly by ministers, on theological minutiae which inevitably 
divide persons in direct ratio to the emphasis placed upon them. 
The “ liberal ” minister, confident that logic and the power of in¬ 
tellect are on his side, may be as much at fault in this regard as the 
revivalist mission preacher who unequivocally affirms the direct 
and divine inspiration of every word of Scripture. A recognition 
of the church’s responsibility to the community and its obligation 
to assist in the solution of personal and community problems, and 
a development of a cooperative program to this end, might well 
serve to eradicate much of the tension and ill will. 


Illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 


15 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 

T HE CHURCH which has sent its roots down deep into 
the local soil is the one to which the men, women and 
children of the community respond. It has done more 
than conduct the conventional services of worship, and is not so 
otherworldly that it fails to live in the present. The minister and 
his associates know the many real and baffling problems which 
daily confront men and women: the effect of poverty and squalor 
on the health and life of children, the concern of the parents of high 
school young people over some of the wild parties that have been 
reported, the worry and fears of the wife and mother whose hus¬ 
band was blinded in a factory accident, the longing of bereaved 
parents for the stabilizing assurance that God is good and that life 
will triumph over death. 

It is the responsibility of the minister to know his people as well 
as he knows his theology, to comprehend the social problems of the 
community with as much insight as he does the heavenly city 
described in Revelation. If the experiences recorded in the Bible 
are to be more than an idle tale, the minister must see that which 
is common to them and to the struggles, the disorganization, the 
hopes and fears expressed in the people about him. 

The church, then, has more than the one task of getting people 
saved and into heaven. Its functions are varied. Through wor¬ 
ship services it does or should minister to the spiritual needs of the 
participants; through the sacraments it affords comfort and solace, 
particularly to those with a mystical turn of mind; through re¬ 
ligious education it brings to the children the rich heritage and high 

258 



Toward a More Effective Local Church 259 

faith of the church, leads them to an acceptance of spiritual goals 
and standards and later to participation in the adult program; 
through various groups and organizations it aids in the develop¬ 
ment of character, gives opportunity for leadership, the acquisition 
of status, fellowship and sociability. These are undisputed areas 
of church activity and constitute the program of the average 
organization. 

Many of the most effective churches, however, perform addi¬ 
tional functions. They recognize a responsibility to establish valid 
goals for community as well as personal action, work for the elimi¬ 
nation of disorganizing and debasing influences within the city, and 
encourage their members to accept responsibility in local philan¬ 
thropic and social service organizations. Where the physical or 
social welfare of individuals is in jeopardy and there are no civic 
institutions to meet the need, the church accepts a mandate to give 
assistance. Therefore it may operate clinics, raise a milk fund, dis¬ 
tribute clothing, offer legal aid, provide a life adjustment center 
or the services of a personal counselor. To this end also it or¬ 
ganizes mothers’ study classes, supports a program of club activi¬ 
ties for children, young people, and adults, and conducts a clean, 
lively and noncommercial recreational program for youth. Such 
a church is not content with a purely local emphasis, but wishes 
to extend the horizons of its people, both spatially, to include 
the larger community of the nation and the world, and structurally, 
to show the relationship between the closed local factory, farm 
foreclosures and international trade. It helps them to see that all 
persons are related by a social and economic nexus, if not by blood, 
and that the good life which the church advocates cannot be di¬ 
vorced from these problems of society. To carry forward this 
phase of its program it may organize a forum, perhaps in connec¬ 
tion with a church night series, where under skilled and informed 
leadership people may ask questions, express their own points of 
view, and register intellectual and social growth. 

No other organization within our society is so well equipped 
to interpret the problems, needs and viewpoints of various groups, 


260 City and Church in Transition 

each to the other, as the Christian church. It ministers to rural 
and urban, to rich and poor, to black and white, to immigrant and 
native-born. No other institution has so wide a scope except 
state or school; but in the state the politician tends to play off 
one section against another, and in the school teachers may lack 
social awareness or be so busy with a multitude of activities that 
such services of interpretation are rendered for only a few. If the 
responsibility is accepted, if the church is willing to forego its 
sectarianism, and if its leadership is sufficiently skilled, it may well 
serve as the great integrating, uniting force of the nation. In many 
a city the church has eased race tensions or aided in the solution 
of economic conflicts, or has built up such an understanding be¬ 
tween two or more groups that threatened crises were forestalled 
and an amicable solution achieved. 

These are the plus elements in the program of the church and, 
other things being equal, the institution which has such an ex¬ 
panded program is the one which brings the widest and richest 
ministry to its own local community. 

Discovering the Community 

If the church wishes to be an integral part of the community 
life and not simply a superimposed, otherworldly institution, it 
will strive to serve the people who are round about it, not merely 
as run-of-the-mill humans but as distinctive personalities in their 
own particular social setting. To accomplish this end it must 
know them and their habitat. Who are they ? Whence did they 
come? Of what race? What are their cultural traditions and 
heritages, their social and economic status, their age distribution ? 
What are their loyalties, their fears, their ambitions ? 

The answers to these questions should influence the working 
out of the church’s program. It makes a difference whether the 
people in an area are of old American stock, somewhat sophisti¬ 
cated in outlook, who have lived for decades in a stable community 
and owned their homes, or whether they are first and second 
generation immigrants from Europe, with no clear comprehension 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 261 

of American standards and traditions, struggling desperately to 
earn a living, suffering from misunderstanding and from some dis¬ 
harmony between the two generations. A nursery or a clinic is not 
needed in a residential suburb; a maids’ club has small place in a 
church serving the foreign-born. 

In such a city as Dearborn, with a disproportionately large 
number of men, the usual predominant emphasis on women’s 
activities will be inappropriate if the church aspires to serve a com¬ 
plete cross section of the community; work hours and the three- 
shift system will also have to be considered in the planning of the 
program. In Pasadena, with an elderly population, the pastoral 
functions and calling become particularly important. On the 
other hand, there are areas in which practically one-third of the 
population is under fifteen years of age. Here stress should be 
given to work among children and young people. The minister 
must understand these factors if he aspires to be an effective 
pastor, preacher, and leader; to achieve this end he must study 
his entire community. 

The house-to-house canvass may have large value as a method of 
studying a community provided attention be given to certain 
prerequisites. The canvass should be planned thoughtfully and in 
detail. It can best be conducted on an interdenominational basis, 
thereby avoiding any accusation of proselyting; under these cir¬ 
cumstances it is also easier to get the approval of the local chamber 
of commerce and to obtain newspaper publicity, which will prove 
a decided asset to the callers. The canvassers should be selected 
with care. A stupid, impatient or tactless person can do more 
harm than good. On the other hand, intelligent, interested visitors, 
who have shared in a one-evening “ training course ” where the 
plan, procedure, use of card and system of reporting are carefully 
explained and assignments clearly made, will benefit by the ex¬ 
perience and make a genuine contribution to the religious life 
of their church, community, and city. 

The record card which is employed should be carefully drawn to 
include not only name, address and religious affiliation, but also 


262 City and Church in Transition 

such data as nationality or race, size of family, names and ages of 
children under twenty-one, special interests and abilities of each 
member, length of residence in the community and location of 
previous residence (to aid in studying mobility patterns), occupa¬ 
tion of the wage earners, with a notation as to whether the home is 
owned or rented, space for any additional comments (as that a 
member of the family is ill, a call should be made, etc.) and a place 
for the visitor’s signature and the date of the call. 

Many a canvass proves to be a pathetic waste of time and effort 
because, after all the work, the cards may simply be piled in the 
corner to gather dust. Even where names of prospective members 
and unchurched persons are distributed to the proper organiza¬ 
tions, a local minister frequently fails to follow up the leads. 
Indeed the securing of new names for constituency rolls is only one 
of the values to be derived from such a study. If the information 
is carefully compiled and interpreted much light will be thrown on 
the community, its social organization, and the changes which are 
in process. If the study has been conducted on an interdenomina¬ 
tional basis, it is quite possible that the sociology department of 
the local college or perhaps the high school will render aid in the 
compilation of the data on social change and population move¬ 
ment. 

Methods other than that of the house-to-house canvass will yield 
valuable results. One should become acquainted with the history 
of the community, the men and movements which have charac¬ 
terized it, the changes which have taken place and those now in 
process. He would do well to walk through the area and adjacent 
districts, with eyes open and senses alert, observing the physical 
setting, such as the main avenues of transportation which, with 
their clusters of stores, draw people from the neighborhoods on 
either side of the thoroughfare, but which may serve as a hazard 
to children en route to the church school. A student of the com¬ 
munity will also want to know the boundaries, rivers, railroads, in¬ 
dustrial districts, parks, or undeveloped tracts which mark off the 
area of his responsibility from adjoining communities; the relation 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 263 

of his own parish to the rest of the city, in social and economic as 
well as geographical position. He will make further inquiry con¬ 
cerning population movements. From what districts have the pres¬ 
ent inhabitants come, and are some of them moving on toward the 
periphery of the city? What new peoples are entering? What 
other racial or cultural groups are nearer the heart of the city and 
likely to move out into this district ? Consideration of the rate and 
direction of this population flow, as well as the cultural back¬ 
ground of the migrants, should enter into the preparation of a 
program. 

The acquiring of such information and its use are very much like 
the assembling of the parts in a jig-saw puzzle. In a study of the 
community, however, one cannot secure all of the requisite pieces 
complete in a box; rather, it is necessary to ferret them out one 
at a time. The more parts can be secured, the more intelligible the 
picture becomes and the easier it is to fit in additional pieces. The 
wise minister will carry on such a study over a period of years (no 
minister can grow into a community in a one or two year stay) 
and preserve in some tangible, permanent form the data assembled 
through interviews, observation, and study of census materials, 
social welfare reports, public school nationality and transfer stud¬ 
ies, denominational yearbooks and local church membership and 
Sunday school enrollment records. Maps, charts, and graphs, 
while they do not make the successful pastor, are valuable tools in 
the hands of a skilled leader. They will not only assist him in 
understanding his parish and its people, but will aid in presenting 
the fruits of his research to his own official members, that to¬ 
gether with him they may comprehend the trends and prepare a 
suitable program. 

An Adequate Field 

It is clear that in order to create an effective local church the 
minister and his people must understand their community and 
their own responsibilities to it. This, however, is only one of 
several factors making for a more effective local church. A second 


264 City and Church in Transition 

consideration is the adequacy of the field. It is as difficult for a 
local institution, poorly situated and in an overchurched com¬ 
munity, to develop a large congregation and an effective program 
as it is for an acorn to grow to maturity when it is planted in a 
milk bottle; it has inadequate resources and too restricted an 
area. For a period of time it will grow, but it is doomed to in¬ 
effectiveness unless it is transplanted to a less restricted locale. 

The mortality rate of churches in most American cities is exces¬ 
sive. This is a direct result of establishing more congregations 
than are needed to serve the local field. The social as well as the 
monetary cost of opening and closing institutions is high. Better 
to have fewer churches and an opportunity for each to survive. 
Before it can be determined which denomination should be given 
the mandate to serve a particular territory, a survey is needed to 
decide which would be most suitable. Not every district offers an 
adequate field for a Congregational or a Methodist church. In a 
typical industrial suburb of seventy-five thousand population 
fewer strong Protestant churches can survive than in a commercial 
city; there is less soil for their growth. 

To be sure, no one church can expect to serve all of the people 
in a local community with their many differences in background, 
culture and temperament. A Protestant church cannot satisfy the 
religious needs of devoted Jews or Catholics. Further, the worship 
service of a Baptist or Methodist congregation may make small 
appeal to a person with Protestant Episcopal training and vice 
versa. And perhaps none of these will be deemed satisfactory by 
others who enjoy the revivalistic orthodoxy of a Full-Gospel taber¬ 
nacle. Therefore provision must be made in the community for 
differing religious views and tastes.* It is obvious that no one 

* Herein is one justification for the downtown church, which may be the 
only representative of its denomination in the city and consequently serves a 
scattered constituency. In fact, each downtown organization draws from every 
community; this must be taken into account when planning the placement of 
a new local church. Even though many Baptists and kindred-minded people 
are found in the area under study, will enough of them be ready to transfer 
their allegiance from the central to the local institution to furnish an adequate 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 265 

church can demand or expect the exclusive right to any large sector 
of its city, nor can it count on the financial support of the entire 
churched population. This does not mean that each denomination 
needs a representative of its own in every section of the city. The 
more similar in polity and practice such religious groups are, the 
more careful they must be to effect comity agreements, since, as 
sociologists point out, competition between the like is more acute 
than between the unlike . 

In the ideal city there would be no unchurched areas, and every 
child would be within walking distance of a congenial religious 
society. On the other hand, overchurching with its attendant 
evils is deplorable from a Christian point of view, for it is waste¬ 
ful and thwarts the effective development of those institutions 
which could be supported. The proper distribution of churches 
can be achieved only to the extent that denominations will outgrow 
their individualistic attitude, develop comity agreements, and 
utilize the methods of social science to fit their institutions to the 
local field. 

A Suitable Location 

The correct site is as important for a church as it is for a drug¬ 
store. A chain drug company may spend several hundred dollars 
investigating the advantages and disadvantages of available corner 
stores, counting the number of people who pass the various loca¬ 
tions and observing their trading habits. The ground cost or the 
rent should be only one factor influencing the decision. All too 
frequently this has disproportionate weight in determining the 
location of a church, whose placement may depend on the whim of 
one person — a real-estate agent with a cheap lot or a friend with 
a site for sale. Community churches particularly are often poorly 
situated — at the edge of a tract, within a block or two of the rail¬ 
road lines, on a dead-end street or a high-speed boulevard which 

support for a new society? Certainly some will not leave the strong, pre¬ 
tentious downtown church for membership in a newly established and small 
congregation. 



266 


City and Church in Transition 

the children cannot safely cross and which offers no parking space. 
To save five hundred or a thousand dollars on the price of a lot, 
the sponsors of the new institution may unwittingly impose a 
handicap which it will never outgrow. The cost of the building 
will be the same in either location, but what a difference in the 
prospect for future development! The effective church will be 
located near the center of its natural community. 

In planning for a new church or the replacement of an old one 
economy demands an adequate survey of the field, to determine 
(i) which denomination can serve most efficiently, and (2) the 
best available site, taking into account accessibility for adults and 
children, price of land, freedom from the uproar of traffic (a church 
should not be opposite the fire-station or on a clattering streetcar 
line), population density, and the direction of population move¬ 
ment. A church which aspires to serve two adjoining tracts should 
select a site in the one with preferred status. Neighborhoods, like 
people, differ from one another in social position, and men and 
women prefer to go from a poorer to a better area for church serv¬ 
ices rather than vice versa. 

The placing of the central church in Mediopolis involves certain 
distinctive considerations. The distribution of its membership, 
like its appeal, is city-wide. In the case of such a church, the 
location is determined not by community barriers or the ease with 
which children can walk to it, but by land values and transporta¬ 
tion facilities. Its very position prevents it from rendering some 
of the services performed by an institution located in the midst of 
a compact parish. This becomes increasingly true as the city 
grows from one hundred thousand to five hundred thousand popu¬ 
lation. Nevertheless, the presence of a church downtown, outside 
of residential communities, is justified for a number of reasons. 
With the prestige of years, it has a place in the traditions and 
loyalties of the whole city which cannot be taken over by the 
“ third ” church in the “ Fairview district.” It is a symbol of 
the importance of religion in the midst of weekday commerce, 
and its pastor is consulted by civic leaders. This church serves 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 267 

the transients, it is the one the visitors wish to attend, and to it, 
in Mediopolis and smaller cities, go many of the new settlers. 

An Efficient Plant and Equipment 

The effective church will have a sanctuary which by its beauty, 
its symbolism and its restfulness will be conducive to worship. 
Assembly halls and a chapel for the church school, as well as ade¬ 
quate classrooms, are important instrumentalities for the dis¬ 
charge of the educational work. All churches have these needs, 
and many are supplied handsomely. The social and recreational 
program however will vary with the community. In a residential 
suburb, where excellent athletic facilities are available in gram¬ 
mar, junior high and high schools, there is small point in a church’s 
expending fifty thousand dollars to erect and equip a gymnasium 
of its own. It is far less expensive to rent the gym in one of the 
schools for an evening a week than to pay interest on such an 
investment. A social hall, which may be used for recreational pur¬ 
poses, with a stage at one end and the kitchen to one side, will be 
much more in demand for entertainments, dramatics, musicales, 
and church suppers. However, in a community where the popula¬ 
tion congestion is so great that the children must play in the 
streets, a church which has adequate recreational and athletic 
apparatus, well supervised by a staff of workers, will be able to 
reach and serve a thousand neighborhood youngsters. This latter 
church has more use for nursery and clinic facilities than does an 
institution in a community where babies are fewer and better cared 
for. Still different is the situation of a church in the downtown 
section of a resort city; it will find that a social center room, 
equipped with comfortable chairs, popular magazines and devo¬ 
tional literature, will be daily patronized by many transients, who 
come for rest, meditation and refreshment. 

The church edifice should fit the community and its needs as 
a glove fits the hand — not too large nor too small and with no 
extra finger dangling at the side. A well equipped plant is no 
extravagance for any church unless there are more institutions 


268 


City and Church in Transition 

within the community than it can reasonably support. If there is 
overchurching, either some institutions have inadequate equipment 
or the per capita cost becomes excessive for church members. 
Wealthy communities can afford such unnecessary duplication, but 
in most districts the penalty for keeping up with the ecclesiastical 
Joneses is an ominous church debt, which will frighten away 
potential members. A threefold relationship, then, exists between 
having an adequate field for each church, efficient equipment, and 
the necessary membership and financial support. 

There may be a lesson to Protestantism in the wise planning 
and the strategic location of most Roman Catholic churches. 
Rarely does this communion have parishes with a membership 
under five hundred, while the average in city after city ranges from 
twelve to eighteen hundred. A larger membership makes possible a 
more beautiful edifice and an effective program at a low per capita 
cost. In contrast, the average membership in Mediopolis for such 
communions as the Baptist, Methodist or Presbyterian ranges 
from three to six hundred. The inevitable result is that half of the 
local institutions are having a desperate struggle to maintain them¬ 
selves, and a disproportionate amount of the energy of people and 
pastor is required to meet the interest charge on the debt burden. 
Protestant churches pay dearly for their independence and divi¬ 
siveness; religion becomes more expensive and the community 
suffers. In an era of economic specialization and cooperation it 
is no longer feasible for each neighborhood group to perform all 
of the basic economic functions; the situation compels interde¬ 
pendence. Similarly, Protestantism must eventually discover that 
it is too costly to support numerous small, overlapping institu¬ 
tions, each with a separate building and equipment. The exigen¬ 
cies of the situation necessitate greater cooperation and church 
comity, if not actual church union. 

Capable Leadership 

Intelligent and conscientious leadership is perhaps the most 
important requisite for success in the local church. Even with 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 269 

the best of equipment and a clear field, a blundering, lazy or timid 
minister will make a very poor showing, unless his ineptitudes are 
overbalanced by conscientious lay leadership. It is deserving of 
general recognition that a successful program does not rest entirely 
on the skills and attitudes of the professional leader, even though 
he is, from the standpoint of the organization, the kingpin. 

Not every community makes the same demands on its religious 
leaders. In exclusive residential districts and in the “ first ” 
churches, the “ preacher ” type is called for. It is more important 
for the head of an institutional church to be a capable executive, 
administrator and money-raiser than an eloquent orator. In other 
instances a pastoral ministry is particularly appreciated. Wealthy 
or large congregations which can employ a trained staff (an 
associate pastor, a director of religious education, a parish visitor, 
a financial secretary, an office secretary) relieve their preacher of 
certain phases of the task of church leadership. This also permits 
greater specialization and therefore presumably greater skill in 
the performance of the different functions. 

Certain traits are assets to the minister of any church, regardless 
of the distinctive community types: a firm conviction concerning 
the values, individual and social, of the Christian faith; sincerity 
and willingness to sacrifice for a cause; energy, imagination, a 
sense of humor, tact, patience and poise, approachability, interest 
in and enjoyment of people, readiness to forgive those who mis¬ 
understand and misinterpret, realism and a willingness to com¬ 
promise on nonessentials; good health and personal habits; the 
attitude of a student, a trained mind, a knowledge of religious 
history and literature, of social processes and group behavior, of 
the techniques of the pastorate; fluency and coherency, good dic¬ 
tion and grammar. Probably no minister is possessed of a maxi¬ 
mum of all these traits, but some are more fortunate in this regard 
than others. Frequently such gifted persons are, with the help of 
commensurate lay support, able to make a striking success of what 
would appear to be a most unpropitious situation. 

It should be recognized that in every community there are 


270 City and Church in Transition 

literally thousands who are unreached by any church; hence the 
theoretical development of local religious institutions is almost 
unlimited. The difficulty is not simply a matter of overchurching; 
it may be that the churches are so ineffective that the community 
is actually underserved. When a new and commanding leader 
enters into such a setting a moribund institution may acquire new 
life, enlarged membership and a more vital program. One result of 
this revivification is that some persons will be attracted from the 
membership of other churches, but hundreds who have previously 
been without church affiliation will also be reached. Brother 
ministers may be irritated by this new competition and accuse the 
more aggressive pastor of proselyting. However, as in many hu¬ 
man situations, the problem is too complicated for blame to be 
readily assessed. 

The “ life-line ” of the church, a graph showing the size of mem¬ 
bership annually for a period of twenty-five or more years, will 
give a rough indication (provided there has been no deliberate 
misreporting) of the periods of poor and of able leadership. After 
a study of hundreds of such charts, one is forced to the conclusion 
that short pastorates are closely associated with small member¬ 
ships. Able men tend to leave after a few years for a stronger 
church, while the congregation objects to retaining the poorer men 
for more than a short term. Long pastorates, presumably a sign 
of skillful leadership, tend to coincide with periods of membership 
growth. 

A more careful selection of candidates for the ministry, on the 
part of theological seminaries and the ordaining bodies of various 
denominations, would undoubtedly strengthen the whole church. 
Anyone who has a wide acquaintanceship among men in the minis¬ 
try is aware that altogether too many of them are poorly trained, 
lacking in intellectual ability, or otherwise so handicapped as to be 
incapable of effective leadership. Such persons lower the status 
of the ministerial profession in the eyes of the community and 
weaken the influence of the local church, and may completely 
alienate the young people. It would be more profitable to the 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 271 

denomination, from the point of view of finances as well as of 
membership, to pension them now rather than permit the con¬ 
tinuance of their unintentionally disorganizing work. 

A consideration of leadership in the local church would not be 
complete unless brief attention were also given to the essential 
contribution made by lay members. One responsibility of the 
church is to give young and older people a chance for self-realiza¬ 
tion, to assist them in developing leadership traits. The church, 
because of its varied activities, has more opportunity to do this 
than have most social institutions, and by such a training process 
it not only develops the people themselves but also insures its 
own continuance. Whether the church be large or small, these 
lay leaders give stability and strength to the whole structure, and 
in the process also confirm their own faith in the significance of 
religion. In the resort city or other areas of high mobility such 
volunteer workers are greatly needed but exceedingly difficult to 
secure. Lacking them, it may become necessary to employ some 
part-time assistants, but these, even though they be better trained, 
cannot impart the same sense of unity and solidity to the organi¬ 
zation. In underprivileged areas where the ministry may be 
chiefly to children, the church will be handicapped until it 
develops out of the group some leaders who will give assistance 
and coherency to the program and at the same time make the in¬ 
stitution indigenous to the local area. 

An Appropriate Program 

Certain features occur in the program of every church. It is 
not the function of this chapter to discuss such items (worship 
service, religious educational, and social activities) but rather 
the influence of the local community, which should determine 
the emphases and shape the pattern. In a church serving a com¬ 
munity of first and second generation immigrants an abiding con¬ 
tribution can be made by interpreting the loyalties and points of 
view of foreign-born parents to their native-born children, and 
vice versa. To this end one church worked out an effective pro- 


272 City and Church in Transition 

gram. A certain evening of the month was devoted to “ the 
Italian homeland.” All the people of the community — Italians, 
Syrians, Germans, and Poles, as well as Americans — were invited 
to attend. A stereopticon machine was secured and a set of colored 
slides portraying the beauties of Italy. While these pictures were 
being shown, Italian folk and opera songs were played softly on a 
phonograph and all were invited to join in the singing. Exhibits 
of heirlooms, handwork, and other treasures brought from Italy 
were arranged at the side of the room. It was a delightful eve¬ 
ning, and the young people could better appreciate the warmth 
with which their parents talked of “ Napoli.” The following 
month the young people born in this country planned an equally 
enjoyable program, using stereopticon slides and songs. In subse¬ 
quent months there were similar occasions featuring Germany, 
Poland, and other countries represented by people in the neigh¬ 
borhood. While the citizens of a residential suburb might ap¬ 
preciate one such evening it would simply constitute another enter¬ 
tainment ; but for these people and others so situated it is a service 
of interpretation. In like manner, every community will call for 
special emphases in the work of the church. These can be dis¬ 
covered only through a study of the local area and the needs of the 
people. 

The age distribution in Cicero is very different from that in 
San Diego. In the one the program will center around youth; 
in the other, around age. This does not indicate that either youth 
or age is to be neglected, but rather that additional features must 
be introduced to serve the dominant group adequately. From the 
standpoint of the future church however it is always sound policy 
to plan for the youth of the area, whether they be many or few. 
Unfortunately such planning is commonly done by those who are 
not young either in years or in understanding. Children and young 
people are not particularly interested in a sedentary and pious 
prayer meeting. They respond more quickly to a program of 
action, whereas their seniors may prefer to sit and “ meditate.” 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 273 

As Ring Lardner expressed it in his classic “ Symptoms of 
Being 35”: 

For inst. when the telephone rings now days I am scared to death 
that its somebody asking us to go somewheres for dinner or some- 
wheres. Six yrs. ago I was afraid it wasn’t. At 29 home was like they 
say on the vaudeville stage, a place to go when all the other joints 
was closed up. At 35 its a place you never leave without a loud 
squawk. . . .* 

Just as young people do not care to come together for a social 
evening of conversation, but would rather play games, so too do 
they prefer visiting a social settlement or mission church in a city 
to hearing a lecture about it. The gray-headed may discountenance 
this activism of youth, but elderly frowns will drive the latter from 
the church before changing their pattern. The fathers-in-Israel 
may as well recognize the boisterous, impetuous hop-skip-and- 
jump of youth and plan a program where this energy may be 
turned to good account in the development of Christian life atti¬ 
tudes. The minister will discover that those who are younger are 
particularly responsive to sermons dealing with the life of today 
and the problems of the present, and he will be wise to give a fair 
portion of his preaching time to such topics. 

The health of the religious society of twenty years from now is 
being determined by our success or failure in reaching the youth 
of today. One of the best methods of quickening the conscience of 
official members and local leaders to this aspect of the work is to 
prepare population pyramids of the memberships of church and 
school, and then point out the gaps. In practically every case both 
pyramids will show a deficiency of men and boys, and frequently of 
girls as well, when compared with the age-sex distribution in the 
community or with the number of women in the organization. 
There are proportionately fewer boys in the church school now 
because the lads of a generation ago, their fathers, lost interest 

♦ From First and Last by Ring Lardner. Used by permission of Charles 
Scribner’s Sons, publishers. 


274 City and Church in Transition 

in the church, and the sons are following in their footsteps. To 
break this vicious circle which undermines the effectiveness of 
the church in the local community it is necessary to develop ac¬ 
tivities which will appeal to the interests of men and boys. Only 
rarely does the men’s club seem to be a solution; a broader pro¬ 
gram which brings in women also, or whole family groups, seems 
to meet with more success. 

The church has been negligent in its treatment of the family, 
although it is dependent for its very existence on the survival of 
Christian education in the home, where the attitudes of children 
toward the most important issues of life are largely determined. 
Occasional sermons on Mothers’ day are inadequate when the 
program constantly deals with the members of the family as 
individuals and seldom regards them in their natural primary 
relationship. Countless activities are provided for women, a few 
for men, some for small children, others for youth. Rarely is an 
effort made to bring people together as members of families. An 
occasional church plans family nights, when the parents and 
children come to the social hall for supper and an entertainment. 
A very few have joint evening programs, fathers and sons working 
together in woodcraft or nature study projects, mothers and 
daughters following other hobbies, all joining for supper at the 
beginning of the evening and again for a brief worship service at 
the close. 

A few ministers, recognizing that marriage is a sacrament and 
not to be entered into lightly, go out of their way to offer counsel 
and advice to young men and women contemplating wedlock, and 
make themselves available to members of their church or com¬ 
munity who have special personal or domestic problems. Where 
a minister does not exceed his abilities and training, such services 
will establish him in the confidence of the people and will form a 
unique contribution to the lives of many at a crucial period. 

In a congregation of two thousand, individuals cannot know 
one another intimately. Usually this means that only a small 
minority participate in the work of the guilds and clubs. Com- 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 275 

monly the minister and his associates will not be aware of this, 
since their attention is concentrated on those who are active rather 
than on those who appear only for worship services. Yet a church 
realizes its full strength and purpose only when it is also able to 
bring these marginal members into the fellowship. When people 
have friends who are more than acquaintances in the local church, 
they will be tied more closely to it. 

Few adults recognize how lonely they are, except in a vague, 
uncomfortable way. In small congenial groups, established 
usually on the basis of common interests and perhaps of age, 
acquaintanceship can ripen into friendship, and here again the 
church can serve its people. Such fellowship circles should be 
related to the sponsoring body through appropriate discussion 
topics: the concrete problems in business ethics, current affairs, 
the regulation of the saloon in the home community, problems of 
child nurture, methods of teaching religion to children. One 
group may be held together by their interest in religious art or 
pageantry, while another will organize an orchestra. These circles 
may meet in the homes of members or in the church; in either case 
the pastor could profitably share an occasional evening with them. 
A congregation can become a strong, vital organization only 
through the slow process of integrating men and women in in¬ 
timate groups and bringing these units together into the larger 
fellowship. It may be noted that the small church has less of a 
problem in producing a cohesive body of members than does the 
“ first ” church. 


Reaching the Unchurched 

By the very nature of its mandate the church has a respon¬ 
sibility to “ seek out, to save and to serve.” Yet while this is the 
theory — and ministers may also assert it is the fact — many in¬ 
stitutions operate more or less as an exclusive club, catering to 
those who belong and making scant effort to contact outsiders. 
This situation is due to a variety of factors: high doctrinal barriers 
which have been built up, coldness or indifference of members 


276 City and Church in Transition 

toward the outsiders, an apologetic attitude toward the institution 
on the part of ministers or laity, or the fact that the church 
is so far removed from real life and so ill-suited to meet the felt 
needs of the people that they in turn are uninterested in it. 

People respond to an organization, religious or otherwise, if it 
has status, if they are welcome to participate and if the program 
makes an appeal. These are the three essentials. Omit one and 
the struggle of the institution for members becomes acute. 
Assuming, however, that these essentials do characterize a local 
church, it is still necessary for the religious leaders to reach out 
actively to invite the unchurched. This invitation to participate 
in the attractive and helpful program which has been developed 
can be extended to the people of the community in a variety of 
ways: 

Publicity. Let the community know the church exists. It is 
advantageous to announce the services and the activities of the 
various church organizations through the local press, in school 
papers, and where possible in the publications of civic bodies and, 
through the same vehicles, to invite the participation of the com¬ 
munity. This type of contact is of basic importance in a resort 
city, for it is practically the only way in which the transient can 
be reached. All too frequently the church is known only to its 
members and to people who live within sight of it. In making a 
recent study ten people of the area were asked where the nearest 
church was located. Four did not know the location of any 
organization, two were aware of the large Catholic institution 
five or six blocks removed, four could name nearer Protestant 
churches. Unfortunately this case is rather typical. 

Pastoral calling. Minister and parish visitor will discover that 
people, particularly owners, who live in private homes welcome 
a brief and not overly unctuous call. This time-honored method 
of contacting people is still used in some cities and continues to 
bring fair results in the recruitment of new members. 

The invitation of members. More effective than a call by the 


277 


Toward a More Effective Local Church 

pastor is a cordial invitation of a neighbor who has learned to 
cherish the fellowship of the church. It is as true of the church as 
of business concerns that “ our customers are our best advertisers.” 

If people have been living in the area for ten years without 
establishing a church connection, there is small chance that pub¬ 
licity or visitation will induce them to join the fellowship. Such 
people have made their contacts, habits are established, they have 
found satisfactions elsewhere. The inertia is too great for a call 
to produce much change in their attitudes. The church had its 
chance, but it was years ago. After a family has been in the 
community for three months without establishing a church tie, 
the likelihood of securing its participation declines rapidly. 
People are most responsive when they come as strangers into a 
new neighborhood and are anxious to find congenial associations. 
This means that church workers must be on the alert. 

There are several methods of discovering the newcomers, that 
they may be personally invited to church. In some cities, particu¬ 
larly where there is a strong united ministerial association, the 
local gas and light company may be induced to report each month 
the new gas-meter connections. Since practically every family 
coming to Mediopolis will utilize gas or electric service and will 
secure the connection within a week of arrival, this is an excellent 
source of information. In two of the cities studied there is an 
official welcoming service, sponsored by various advertisers, which 
also distributes a list of all the religious societies, with their 
addresses, and invites the newcomer to attend the church of his 
choice. Each minister receives the names and addresses of the 
new residents. In other cities the real-estate board makes avail¬ 
able to ministers the list of new rentals. Where it is impossible 
for a church to utilize any one of these plans, it should devise a 
scheme of its own to locate strangers who are coming into the 
parish. One member could be appointed for each block to report 
any change of residence, in or out; this might be made a project 
for the women’s society. A somewhat better plan is to utilize 


278 City and Church in Transition 

the Boy Scout organization, different districts being assigned to 
each troop, which in turn will divide the responsibility among the 
individual members. The idea of such “ scouting ” appeals to the 
boys, who are looking for a chance to do a good turn. At the same 
time it builds them and their organization more closely into the 
church structure, since it gives them a sense of participation. 

The best plan of discovering newcomers will be inadequate 
unless it is followed by an invitation and a demonstration of 
personal interest in them. Yet even this will not suffice. A con¬ 
genial fellowship, an uplifting worship service, a varied program 
suited to the needs of such people as live in the local community, 
are also requisite if the great unchurched masses of Mediopolis are 
ever to be brought into vital contact with the church at “ Tenth 
and Ann streets.” 


APPENDIXES 



g 

o 

H 

Q 

% 

< 

m 

W 


H 

£ 



cn 

« 

O 

TJ 

cn 

3 

cn 

Cl 

4> 

u 

o 

H 


I 

i 


p 

p 


£ 


281 


inis low percentage is to be accounted lor by tne large number 01 Mexicans in h .1 raso, 57.2 per cent of the entire population, 
not include Mexicans and Orientals as foreign-born whites. Percentages for other races,” generally small, are not included in this table. 



















































































OCCUPATIONAL DISTRIBUTION 


Resort City 

Atlantic City 

Miami 

San Diego 

PO 

PI 

M 

OO 

Tt- 

W 

Per Cent 

00 0 < NLO'Oe*f'*LOLq 

ci ONPOt^-dvt>»od po 00 

W M PI 

0*001 

Residential 

Suburb 

Cleveland Hts. 
East Orange 
Evanston 

Mt. Vernon 

Newton 

Pasadena 

O 

w 

OO 

•s 

vO 

M 

Per Cent 

OLOOO PI 00 t^-o O HI 
• •••••••• 

PI M M IO N T|- 

H <N M M M 

100.1 

Industrial 

Suburb 

Cicero 

Dearborn 

Gary 

Lynn 

McKeesport 

Paterson 

PO 

OO 

H 

0* 

0* 

Per Cent 

Tj- PI 00 1-0 H CO 0 iq t>. 

6 LO ON NO <N M NO t"- O 

rf m m 

100.0 

Industrial 

City 

Altoona 

Binghamton 

Evansville 

Scranton 

Tacoma 

Winston-Salem 

ON 

"'t 

OO 

LO 

w 

Per Cent 

M Tf t> H H 00 00 CO 

• •••••••• 

m 10 On O 10 M NO O On 

CO M M M 

0 

6 

0 

M 

Commercial 

City 

Des Moines 
Duluth 

El Paso 
Montgomery 
Salt Lake City 
Wichita 

r-- 

NO 

00 " 

r-. 

CS 

Per Cent 

OOpOOpOOpOOhipo 

MNOpidOPiONiOPO 

PI 1—1 PI MM 

1*001 

Urban Type 

Sample Cities 

Total Employed 

Occupation 

Agriculture. 

Building. 

Manufacturing. . . 
Transportation... 

Trade. 

Public Service.... 

Professional. 

Domestic. 

Clerical. 

Total. 


282 


The Mean Average for the five types of Mediopolis based on the number employed in the sample cities. 

















































APPENDIX III 


THE POPULATION PYRAMID: 

A DEVICE FOR STUDYING THE LOCAL CHURCH 

The “ population pyramid,” which depicts the actual age and 
sex distribution of the people within a specific area, has been em¬ 
ployed by the United States Bureau of the Census for several dec¬ 
ades in making demographic surveys. The same principle can be 
utilized in the study of institutions such as the church. It has 
been utilized to good effect for a number of years in analyzing the 
relationship between particular churches and their local commu¬ 
nities, to discover how completely the church and its organizations 
are serving a cross section of the community. This does not im¬ 
ply that the church will reach every person within its parish, but 
that its program, if well rounded, will attract persons of all ages 
and both sexes. The population pyramid device, then, furnishes 
insight not only into the age and sex distribution of members and 
constituents in an organization, but also into the latter’s success in 
adapting its program to meet the felt needs of those who live 
within the parish. 

In the accompanying chart a typical population pyramid for an 
industrial community is shown at the left. The portion of the 
pyramid to the left of the center line represents the male popula¬ 
tion, that to the right, the female. The horizontal bars indicate 
the relative size of the different age groups, beginning with the 
youngest (under five years) at the bottom and ending with those 
sixty-five years of age and over at the top. Since communities 
differ greatly from one another in age and sex composition, a dif- 

283 




284 City and Church in Transition 

URBAN INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY AND CHURCH 


AGE AND SEX DISTRIBUTION 


CENSUS CHURCH SCHOOL CHURCH 

TRACT ENROLMENT MEMBERS 

1930 1933 1933 



MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE MALE FEMALE 


ference may naturally be expected in the type of work done by the 
church in communities of contrasting population composition. In 
a similar way a pyramid can be prepared for the children, young 
people and adults enrolled in the church school, and another for 
the church membership. These three pyramids are needed for the 
study of any one church, since those for the church school and the 
church can be judged only in terms of their particular parish. If 
the balance between the sexes in the church pyramids is com¬ 
parable with that of the community and if the age distribution is 
practically the same, it is a clear indication that this particular 
church is conducting a well balanced program that appeals to the 
whole of the people and not overwhelmingly to one sex or age 
group. 

To indicate the contribution made by the pyramid device in the 
analysis of a church’s program, a brief study of a sample institu¬ 
tion is presented. The accompanying chart depicts a community 
of workingmen’s homes in a midwest city. Most of the heads of 







The Population Pyramid 285 

families, when employed, are engaged in semi-skilled and skilled 
labor in various industrial plants. The pyramid at the left shows 
the age-sex distribution of the entire population in the parish (in 
this case it was possible to secure detailed figures for several 
census enumeration districts which formed only part of the city 
ward). The balance between the sexes is practically normal, ex¬ 
cept for the definite excess of men over women thirty-five to fifty- 
four years of age. This can be explained by the fact that a large 
proportion of the persons living in the area are immigrants who 
came over from Europe prior to the restriction law of 1921; as is 
typical in such communities there are more men than women. As 
time passes, this difference will disappear. 

The center pyramid, showing the distribution of church school 
enrollment, is fairly representative of urban church schools in an 
industrial setting in that few persons over twenty-five or thirty 
years of age are enrolled. It is to be expected that there will be 
relatively few under five years of age. The deficiency in the num¬ 
ber of boys as compared with that of girls between five and four¬ 
teen does however require explanation. In practically every 
church which has been studied it has been found that the program, 
for one reason or another, does not attract the boys as it does the 
girls. Among the factors involved are: greater difficulty in secur¬ 
ing capable teachers for boys than for girls, the tendency to use 
women teachers who may not “ understand ” boys, problems of 
discipline, difficulties with program material and local use of ma¬ 
terial, and a more or less conscious feeling on the boys’ part that 
the church is a feminine organization. The solution of these prob¬ 
lems is basic to the continuance of the church as an effective insti¬ 
tution. 

Surprisingly enough, there are four times as many boys as girls 
from fifteen to nineteen years of age in the church school, an even 
distribution from twenty to twenty-four, and a larger proportion 
of young men than young women from twenty-five to twenty-nine. 
There is a definite reason for this. The pastor, a capable young 


286 


City and Church in Transition 

seminary graduate, who had been serving this church for eight 
years, organized boys’ clubs, printing classes and so forth. His 
work was chiefly with those twelve years of age and over. This 
intensive cultivation is naturally reflected in greater interest on 
the part of the boys. Further, their loyalty has been maintained 
through a social program even after they have left the clubs. This 
chart does indicate, however, that some equally skilled and de¬ 
voted leader is needed to organize the girls’ activities. 

The third pyramid portrays the age-sex distribution of church 
members. Certain points of strength and weakness are readily 
noticed. The youthful aspect of the membership bodes well for 
the future. When there are more church members over forty than 
under, the future is clearly a precarious one, since the passage of 
time will slowly remove those now supporting the church by their 
presence and their contributions, while those who should assume 
the burden in future years have never joined. However, in this 
case it is rather surprising that there are fewer members from 
thirty-five to forty-four years of age than from twenty-five to 
thirty-four, inasmuch as the community shows a measurably 
greater proportion of the older group. Nevertheless this diver¬ 
gence from the community pyramid is to the advantage of the 
local church from the point of view of the future, although the 
community composition indicates that a greater effort might rea¬ 
sonably be made to interest those above thirty-five. It is evident 
that the church is failing to attract men over this age. While 
there are more men than women in the community there are only 
half as many in the local church. Surely religion and the church 
can meet the needs of men as well as of women. One problem be¬ 
fore the pastor and his membership is then, How may we appeal 
to these men and interest them in the work? It may also be 
pointed out that the pastor must translate the interest shown by 
the young men of fifteen to nineteen years in the church school, 
into a desire for membership in the church itself. 


The Population Pyramid 


287 


Directions for Constructing a Pyramid 

The necessary information for the community pyramid may be 
found in the most recent United States Decennial Census for every 
township, village, and city and, in cities of over fifty thousand 
population, for every ward. Any minister, with the assistance of 
one or two persons who are well acquainted in the church, can clas¬ 
sify the membership on the basis of sex and age; ordinarily five- 
year intervals are used up to twenty-five years of age, as 0-4, 5-9, 
10-14, 15-19, and 20-24; and ten-year intervals beyond that age, 
as 25-34, 35-44,45-54, 55-64, 65 and over. Church school records 
will give sufficiently accurate information for school members un¬ 
der twenty-five. The ages of the older persons can be guessed 
within the ten-year limits. 

The percentages for each pyramid are to be computed sepa¬ 
rately. Let the entire group to be tabulated (population, school 
enrollment, or church membership) equal 100 per cent. Deter¬ 
mine what percentage each age-sex group is of the total. With 
this information at hand one is ready to construct the pyramid. A 
vertical line at the center divides the sexes; conventionally males 
are placed at the left, females to the right. Horizontal markings 
on this line, at equal intervals, beginning at the base line, will di¬ 
vide the figure into five-year periods. On the horizontal base line 
percentages are marked off in either direction from the center 
line which is zero per cent. The length of the bar from the center 
line will in each case indicate the percentage which has been calcu¬ 
lated for that particular age-sex group. At this point a word of 
warning should be given concerning the recording on the chart of 
age groups covering ten years. In such a case the bar will be twice 
as high as for a five-year interval; therefore, in indicating this 
group on the chart, the computed percentage should be halved. 
In like manner, the computed percentage for the group sixty-five 
years of age and over should be divided by four, and the corre¬ 
sponding bar cover a twenty-year interval (sixty-five to eighty- 
five). 


288 City and Church in Transition 

If there are any questions concerning the use of this technique, 
the writer invites correspondence. He would also appreciate it 
if pastors would send him copies of the data (age-sex distribu¬ 
tion) for school enrollment and church membership in their local 
churches. Such material will be treated as confidential, but will 
be of assistance in analyzing future trends for the church as a 
whole. 


Illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll 


APPENDIX IV 

METHODS OF SECURING DATA 
ON LOCAL CHURCHES 

As part of the study of Mediopolis and its churches, a seminar 
was conducted each summer from 1934 through 1937 at Garrett 
Seminary, designed for pastors serving churches in cities of from 
50,000 to 150,000 inhabitants. One or more ministers from each 
of sixteen cities of mediopolitan size attended. In the seminar 
problems of the local church and of intra- and inter-denomina¬ 
tional relationships were given detailed study, experiences in one 
city being checked over against those in others. The problems 
and work of their churches and denominations were compared 
with those in larger and smaller cities, fourteen of these being rep¬ 
resented. The comparisons afforded in this connection aided in 
laying the foundations for the thesis of this book. 

To gather further information from various denominations 
within a number of cities of this size, a questionnaire form was 
prepared in the autumn of 1936 and, after due testing, was sent 
to all of the ministers serving nine major Protestant denomina¬ 
tions (Baptist, northern and southern, Congregational Christian, 
Methodist Episcopal, northern and southern, Presbyterian, north¬ 
ern and southern, Protestant Episcopal, and United Lutheran) in 
thirty-three cities, including all the sample cities treated in chap¬ 
ters 3 to 7. A very gratifying response was received to the ques¬ 
tionnaires. The large majority of the ministers obviously gave 
much time and thought to their replies. Not a few took the trou¬ 
ble to write additional letters describing one or another special 

289 




290 City and Church in Transition 

aspect of their work, or stressing certain difficulties connected 
with it. Of the 712 forms which were sent out, 313 were returned. 
The response was uniformly satisfactory for the different cities 
and denominations. Much use was made of these materials, par¬ 
ticularly in chapters 10 to 14. 

Because of the nature of the questionnaire it is possible that 
replies were not received from a complete cross section of the min¬ 
istry. While a number of conservative ministers replied, the like¬ 
lihood is that a larger response would be received from those 
having what might be called a community point of view. But in¬ 
asmuch as this biasing effect is probably equal in various types of 
city, the comparison between them would seem to be legitimate. 
Only major Protestant denominational groups were included in 
the questionnaire study, with the result that small sectarian and 
free-lance churches were not heard from. 

The questions asked were as follows: 

Study of Cities 50,000-150,000 Population, 1936 

City_ Church Address _ 

Church _ Denomination _ 

No. of Church Members_ No. of Sunday School Mem¬ 
bers _ 

1. Please check the type of community in which your church is 
located: 

Center of City _ 

Workingmen’s 
residence area 
Exclusive 
residence area 

Indicate any dominant nationality or racial groups (other than 
native white American) in the neighborhood of your church. 


Industrial or 
deteriorated area 
Middle-class 

residence area _ 

Other _ 














291 


Securing Data on Local Churches 

2. Is your program designed only for members, or are there ele¬ 
ments which are designed for the people of the community whether 
members or nonmembers ? 

If the latter, please list such items and the number of persons 
participating. 

3. Do the majority of your church members live within a half- 
mile radius of the church ? Within a one-mile radius ? 

4. What are your objectives as minister of your church ? Please 
be as specific as possible. 

5. What do you consider to be the chief problems confronting 
your church in relation to: 

(a) Its membership 

(b) Its local community 

(c) Its city. 

6. Are there any special religious problems in the city of which 
you are aware, such as competition between churches either in 
your own denomination or between churches of different denomi¬ 
nations ? Please describe fully. 








INDEX 








Illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllli .II 


Index 


Age distribution, 28, 47, 63, 90, 99, 
107, ii4ff., 120, 127, 154, 222; in 
churches, 155 ff., 195 f., 252, 260 f., 
272, 283-88 

Agriculture, 28 f., 35, 44 f., 48, 64, 68, 
80, 85, 102, 117, 282 
Altoona, Pa., 30, 60, 62 ff., 183, 244, 
281 

American, native, 9, 49, 62, 69, 72, 81, 
83, 92, 108, 115, 181, 281 
Anonymity, 12 f., 238, 249 
Apartment house area, 12, 21, 96, 
104 f., 109 f., 223, 226, 231, 238 f. 
Asheville, N. C., 26 

Atlantic City, 29, 31, 33, 38, 112-21, 
243 f., 248, 281 
Austin, Tex., 18, 37 
Austrian, 82 

Baptist, 50, 69, 132 f., 141 ff., 148, 153, 
176 f., 184,186 f., 208 f., 264, 268 
Barriers, 22, 38 f., 49, 188, 213, 225, 
262, 266 

Bilingual churches, 148, 156, 166, 
176 f., 182, 19s, 204 f., 230, 271 f. 
Binghamton, N. Y., 57, 62 ff., 69-72, 
183-87, 281 

Boston, 18, 39, 78, 222, 230 
Bridgeport, Conn., 8 
Brockton, Mass., 26 
Building trades, 29, 44 f., 64, 85, 102, 
116 f., 282 
Burlington, la., 41 

Business district, 6, 8 ff., 15, 21, 23, 
104, 130, 134 147 


Cambridge, Mass., 75, 96 
Camden, N. J., 30 f., 76, 79 f., 86 
Canadian, 54, 86, 90, 100, 108, 208 
Catholic, Roman, 47, 50, 63, 72, 126 f., 
141 ff-, 152 f-, i 57 > 165, 168, 172, 
179, 182 ff., 187, 195, 202 f., 207 f., 
212, 22S, 229 f., 232 f., 238, 241, 264, 
268 

Cedar Rapids, la., 41 
Chamber of commerce, 43, 50, 61, 71, 
236 

Charlotte, N. C., 26 
Chattanooga, Tenn., 25, 140 
Chicago, 1, 3, 8 f., 12 f., 18, 27, 36, 39, 
78, 82, 97 f., 100, 103 ff., 170, 223, 
232 

Chinese, 8, 216, 254 
Christian (Disciples of Christ), 177 
Church: attitude toward, 11, 145, 153* 
155, 172 f., 184 f., 189 f., 191, 196 f., 
210, 224, 226, 229, 232 ff., 236, 238 ff., 
250; community, 6, 128 ff., 134 f., 
229, 239, 252, 265; development of, 

127- 31, 148 f.; downtown, 13, 15 f., 

128- 31, 134 U 145 , ISO, 249, 251 f., 
264, 266 f.; establishment of, 146 ff.; 
function of, 125, 138, 162-67, 169, 
211 f., 258 ff. (see also Objectives); 
influence of, 125 f., 151 f., 157,169 f., 
172 f., 184, 189, 234; location and 
erection of, 174, 225, 263-66; mo¬ 
rale of, 129 f., 135, 14S, 161 f., 204, 
213 f.; physical plant and equipment 
of, 127, 131 f., 14S, 158 f., 226 f., 
229, 267 f.; problems of, 13, 5S> i 22 > 


2 9 S 



296 


Index 


142, 157, 161, 167-80, 193-99, 236- 
40, 249-55 (see also Financial, Lead¬ 
ership, Location, Membership, Un¬ 
churched) ; relocation of, 15 f., 130, 
135, 169, 266; size of, 148 ff.; types 
of, 128 ff., 136 ff., 148, 204-7 (see 
also Bilingual, Institutional, etc.) ; 
typical, 158-61; withdrawal of, 137, 
146, 264 

Church attendance, 163, 201, 237 f., 
246, 250 

Church planning, 168, 177, 212 f., 221, 
chap. 15 

Church school: See Religious educa¬ 
tion 

Cicero, Ill., 30 f., 81-86, 91, 100, 202 f., 
217, 223, 272, 281 

City: function of, 20, 26-32, 41, 55, 
112; growth of, chap. 1, 21 f., 25, 
37-41, 49, 51, 53, 61, 68, 70, 79 f., 
89, 94, 106, 109, 112 f., 126 f., 131; 
site of, 35 f., 38, 46, 48, So, 53 , 61, 
70, 86; types of, 25-28, 32 ff., 36, 
67, 75 f., 140 (see also Mediopolis, 
Metropolis, Small city, Village) 

Clerical occupations, 31, 45, 58, 64, 85, 
101 f., 117, 282 

Cleveland, O., 27, 31, 78, 95 

Cleveland Heights, O., 25, 27, 30 f., 
88, 95, 102, 281 

Climate, 43, 106, 114, 167, 243, 247 

Commercial city, 32, chap. 3, 57 ff., 63, 
65 f., 84, hi f., 116 f., chaps. 9 and 
10, 188, 211, 281 f. 

Commercial development, 35, 59, 69 

Community, 8 ff., 14 f., 21 ff., 28, 31, 
38, 42, 49, 53, 62, 67, 69, 73, 76, 81, 
84, 92, 94, 96, 99, 103 ff., 115, 120, 
125-31,136-39,142, 147 , ISO f., 161- 
70,174,182,188,190-93, 201, 205 ff., 
211, 213-19, 229, 231, 234, 236, 242, 
2S7-67, 271-74, 276, 278; definition 
of urban, 6 

Community consciousness, 9, 22 f., 80, 
128, 131, 188 f., 209, 223, 231, 236 

Competition between churches, 208; 


downtown vs. community, 128 ff., 
175 f., 194; interdenominational, 

126, 152, 176-79, 185, 198 f., 219 ff., 
240 ff., 245, 252, 255 ff.; intra- 
denominational, 128-32, 152, 175 ff., 
185, 229, 238 f. 

Congregational, 132 f., 148, 153, 177, 
179, 208, 264 

Cooperation between churches, 145, 
151 f., 165,178 ff., 197 f., 214, 219 ff., 
232, 240 ff., 255, 262, 268; comity, 

127, 151 f., 265, 268 

Cost of government, 24 f., 61, 78 
Cost of living, 72. See Standard of 
living 

Council Bluffs, la., 41 
Council of churches, 179,197 f., 220 
Culture patterns, 8, 20, 28, 36, 41, 43, 
47 f., 50 ff., 55, 57 f., 61 f., 67, 73 f., 
76 f., 83 f., 88, 92 f., 99 ff., 103 ff., 
107, 120,126,138, 141,168,186, 203, 
209, 213, 222-25, 244 f., 260, 263 
Czechoslovakian, 8, 62, 81 f., 181, 183, 
202 f., 219 

Davenport, la., 41 

Dearborn, Mich., 25 f., 29 f., 79 f., 83, 
85 f., 89, 200, 209, 211, 244, 261, 281 
Denominations, 126 ff., 147, 151 f., 237 
Denver, 49 

Des Moines, la., 8, 18, 24, 26, 37, 39 f., 
43 , 45 , 47 , 55 , 57 ,127, 132-35,141 U 
146, 148, 281 

Deteriorated area, 2, 137, 148, 150, 
166, 240 

Detroit, Mich., 78, 90, 209 
Disorganization, social, 12 f., 137, 

201 f., 214, 258 

Domestic and personal service, 31 f., 
42 f., 45 ff., 52, 58, 64 f., 68, 85 f., 
95 f., 99 f., 102, 108, hi, 116 ff., 120, 
225, 228, 282 
Dubuque, la., 41 

Duluth, Minn., 38, 44 ff., 53 ff., 57, 
140 ff., 167, 281 
Durham, N. C., 25 f. 


Index 


297 


East Chicago, Ind., 26 
East Orange, N. J., 27, 84, 100, 102, 
281 

Ecology, 38, 43. See City, growth of, 
and Hinterland 

Economic classes, 8, 21 f., 68 f., 73, 
83 f., 86, 95 f., 109, 114, 116, 131, 
138, 173, 188 f., 197, 222 ff., 231, 
236 

Economic insecurity, 51 f., 66 f., 87, 
91 f., 173 f., 183, 201 f., 243 
Educational standards, 20, 47, 51, 55, 
57, 66 f., 69, 86, 89, 91, 100 f., 104, 
116, 118 

Elizabeth, N. J., 30, 75, 79, 81 f., 86, 
100, 200 

El Paso, Tex., 37!, 43, 45, 47, 142, 
179, 281 

English, 72, 82, 88, 100, 108, 120, 143, 
208 

Episcopalian, 153, 179, 184, 187, 241, 
255, 264 

Evangelical, 127, 229 
Evanston, Ill., 27, 29 f., 39, 84, 96 ff., 
100, 102-5, 223, 232 f., 281 
Evansville, Ind., 38, 63 f., 281 
Extraction of minerals, 29, 42, 44, 48 f., 
59, 63 

Factory: See Industry 
Fall River, Mass., 26 
Family of churches, 143 
Financial problems of churches, 129, 
131, 135 ff., 162 f., 169 f., 173 f., 193, 
204, 209, 215 f., 227, 247, 268 
Finnish, 54, 141 

Fluidity, 10 f., 36, 96-99, 226, 233 f. 
See also Mobility 

Foreign-born, 51, 54, 68, 71 f., 86, 90, 
92, 157, 170, 181 f., 209 f.; com¬ 
munities of, 8, 22, 62, 81, 195, 217 ff., 
281 (see also Bilingual churches) 
Four Square Gospel, 137, 177 f. 
Friends, 136, 177 

Fundamentalism, 151, 178, 185 f., 

198 f., 229, 247 f. 


Galveston, Tex., 18 

Gary, Ind., 26, 29, 38, 42, 79-85, 91, 
200, 281 

Geographical influences, 18, 25 f., 28, 
37, 43, 127, 141,184, 233 
German, 8, 54, 62, 82, 88, 90, 100, 108, 
120, 126, 141, 183, 195, 204 f., 272 
Glendale, Cal., 25, 27 
Grand Rapids, Mich., 127 
Greek, 82, 208 
Greek Orthodox, 195 
Greensboro, N. C., 26 

Hamlet, the, 3-6 
Hammond, Ind., 26 
Hinterland, 2 ff., 18, 20, 28, 32, 34-42, 
48 ff., 52-56, 58 ff., 75 f-, 95 , hi, 
127, 140, 182 
Hoboken, N. J., 25 
Hollander, 81, 88, 126 f. 

Holyoke, Mass., 26 
Home ownership, 71, 73, 147, 223, 226, 
276 

Hungarian, 82 

Immigrant, 22, 32, 37, 49, 51, 54 f., 
62, 80 ff., 87!., 92, 126, 141, 143, 
182 f., 186, 201, 203, 217, 230, 260, 
271 f. 

Industrial area, 51, 53, 148 
Industrial city, 25 f., 31 f., 43, 56, 
chap. 4, 84, hi, 148, chap. 11, 281 f. 
Industrial suburb, 30 ff., 43, 58, 67, 72, 
chap. 5, 94, 99 ff., 107, 121, 173,182, 
188, chap. 12, 222, 281 f. 

Industry, 108; development of, 34-36, 
48, 50, 53 , 79 , 81 f., 92 f., 113 5 heavy 
and light, 26, 29, 63, 66, 79, 83, 89, 
91 ff., 183; influence of, 181 ff., 188, 
190, 193; location of, 58 
Institutional church, 137, 148, 205 f., 
230, 240 

Interstitial areas, 23, 76, 79, 213 
Irish, 62, 72, 82, 88, 120, 183, 208 
Irvington, N. J., 27 
Italian, 8, 62, 72, 82, 88, 120, 136, 


Index 


298 

170, 183, 201, 204 f., 208, 213, 216, 
218 f., 241,272 

Jewish, 8, 120, 143, 152, 165, 172, 182, 
184, 187, 195, 202, 208, 212 f., 225, 
241, 264 
Jugoslav, 82,181 

Kansas City, 49 

Labor costs, 46, 51, 60, 73, 82 
Labor turnover, 73 
Lakewood, O., 27, 30 f., 39, 95, 109 
Land values, 21 f., 53, 72 f., 75, 78, 96, 
229 f. 

Latter-day Saints, 127, 136, 144 f., 157 
Lawrence, Mass., 26 
Leadership: church, lay, 127, 172, 
236 f., 240, 250, 271; church, min¬ 
ister: See Minister; community, 128, 
216, 259 

Lincoln, Neb., 39 

Literacy, 49, 52, 55 , 69, 72, 86, 88, 
100,116 

Lithuanian, 22, 62, 82, 183, 213 
Long Beach, Cal., 26 f., 29 
Los Angeles, 1, 27, 78, 106, 233 
Lowell, Mass., 25 f. 

Lutheran, 47, 126, 141, 153, 157, 165, 
187, 225, 229 

Lynn, Mass., 79 f., 83, 85 f., 200, 
207 ff., 281 

McKeesport, Pa., 83, 85, 281 
Malden, Mass., 76, 109 
Manchester, N. H., 26, 39 
Manufacturing, 29, 32, 43 ff., 49, 56- 
60, 63 f., 68, 85 f., 101 f., hi, 117, 
184, 282. See also Industry 
Maps, 19, 132 f. 

Marginal people, 23 
Marital status, 13, 47, 83, 99, 116 
Marooned area, 22 
Mediopolis, xif., 7, 14 ff., chap. 2, 34, 
37 , 39 , 4 i- 44 , 55 , 61, 73 f., 78, 88, 
108, hi, 118, 122, 131, 134, 136, 
139, 167,178, 197, 266 ff., 277, 289 ff. 


Membership in churches, So, 127 ff., 
131-36, 141, I 45 , 147 - 57 , 164-67, 
170 f., 184, 186, 188, 191, 211-16, 
223 f., 227, 231 f., 234, 237, 239, 256, 
266, 268; loss of, 147, 168 f.; mo¬ 
bility of, 134, 147 , 149 f-, 167 ff., 
175 f-, 195, 20s, 212 f., 226, 246; 
records of, 149, 153 - See also Un¬ 
churched 

Methodist, So, 69, 103, 127, 132 f., 
141 ff., 148, 176 ff., 184, 186 f., 194, 
208 f., 232, 241, 264, 268 
Metropolis, 7-14, 17, 20, 25, 28, 31 f., 
36 f., 39 f., 42, 57 U 72, 75 - 78 , 84, 
90 f., 94 f., 106, 108 f., 131, 189, 
197, 212, 222f., 234, 236, 240 
Metropolitan region, 27, 37, 39 f., 75, 
78, 84, 94, ii 5 , 222 
Mexican, 38, 47, 82, 92, 105, 108, 116, 
142, 181, 254, 256 

Miami, Fla., 25, 27, 33, 75, 114 - 17 , 
243, 246-49, 281 

Mining: See Extraction of minerals 
Minister, 13, 127, 129 f., 138, 142, 172, 
174, 227, 239, 258, 268-71, 273, 276; 
attitudes of, 130, 145, 151 f., 161- 
65, 177 ff-, 190 f., 194 , 197 , 202, 
210 f., 224, 227 f., 234 f., 237, 

248 f. 

Ministerial association: See Council of 
churches 
Minneapolis, 54 

Mission, 128, 134, 136 f., 146 ff., 206 f., 
233, 240 f., 256 

Missionary support, 132, 136 f., 151, 
176, 182, 206 f. 

Mobility, 10-13, 22, 27, 106, 112 f., 
120, 131-35, 140, 142, 147 , 149 f-, 
168, 183, 187 f., 193 f., 209, 212, 223, 
244-48, 252, 262 

Montgomery, Ala., 31, 38,40,43,45 ff., 
50 - 55 , 65, 140, 143, 186, 281 
Moravian, 67, 69, 186 f. 

Mormon: See Latter-day Saints 
Mount Vernon, N. Y., 27, 39, 100, 102, 
109, 281 


Index 


299 


Nationality: See Racial composition 
Natural resources, 4, 34 f., 48 f., 59, 61, 
7i, 87 

Nazarene, 137 

Negro, 8, 22, 43, 46 f., 51 f., 54, 65, 
68 f., 71, 73, 82, 92, 100, 104, 108, 
116, 120, 143, 170, 181 f., 186, 201, 
205, 213, 218, 225, 230, 232 f., 242, 
255, 281 

Neighborhood, 15,128 f., 146, 262, 266 
New Bedford, Mass., 26, 38 
New England cities, 25 f., 60, 230 
Newspaper circulation, 40 ff., 54 
Newton, Mass., 100,102, 222, 230, 233, 
281 

New York City, 7, 9, n, 27, 37, 41, 
78, 82, 87, 170 
Niagara Falls, 38, 59 
Norfolk, Va., 30, 38, 42 
Northern cities, 31, 53 ff., 60, 67!, 
72 f., 143, 187 

Oakland, Cal., 39 
Oak Park, HI., 27, 84, 109 
Objectives of the church, 161-65, 190- 
93, 210 f., 214-18, 232, 234 f., 248 f. 
Occupational distribution, 28-32, 42- 
47, 57, 63-66, 83-88, 102, 116 ff. 
Omaha, Neb., 12, 37, 39, 41 
One-industry city, 26 f., 37, 80, 90, 121, 
183, 209, 244 

Overchurching, 174, 176 f., 199, 208, 
241 f., 264 f. 

Pasadena, Cal., 27, 99, 102, 105-8, 
233 f., 261, 281 

Paterson, N. J., 84-89, 202, 209, 281 
Peoria, Ill., 193 
Philadelphia, 18, 37, 78, 183 
Pittsburgh, 78 

Polish, 8, 22, 62, 82, 88, 90, 104, 126, 
170, 181, 183, 208, 213, 219, 272 
Pontiac, Mich., 26, 44 
Population: composition of, 8, 37, 49, 
51 f., 80-83, 143, 168, 208; move¬ 
ment of, 13, 15 f-, 96 f., 129-31, 134, 


137, 147, 149 f-, 168, 182, 195, 201, 
212 (see also Fluidity and Mobil¬ 
ity); pyramids, 154-57, 170 f., 196, 
273, 283-88 

Port Arthur, Tex., 26, 57, 59 
Portland, Me., 55 
Portuguese, 216 

Presbyterian, 50, 132 f., 141, 148, 177, 
179, 184, 187, 209, 225, 268 
Professionalization, n f., 23 f., 105 
Professional service, 30, 32, 42, 45 f., 
57 f., 64 f., 68, 83, 85 f., 100, 102, 
108, 116 f., 129, 282 
Program of churches, 42, 137, 147 ff., 
192, 211-19, 226 f., 250-55, 259 ff., 
263, 271-75; for the family, 148, 
274f.; for men, 165, 171 f., 261, 
273 f.; for women, 160, 165, 224, 
238; for young people, 138, 157, 
159 f., 162, 165 f., 170 f., 214 ff., 230, 
239 f., 254 f., 267, 273 
Program emphasis: community, 163- 
67, 169 f., 186, 189, 191-93, 206 f., 
210 ff., 216-19, 228 f., 234 f., 240, 
246, 257-61, 271-75; doctrinal, 162, 

185 f., 199, 2iif., 229, 235, 245, 
247 ff., 257, 275; institutional, 162 f., 
199, 237 f.; social gospel, 163, 169 f., 
210, 234; world-wide, 234!., 259 

Protestant, 49, 69, 72, 127, 131, 136, 
141, 143, 145, 152, 172, 179, 182 f., 

186 f., 195, 202 ff., 208, 213 f., 225, 
232 ff., 238 f., 241 f., 256, 264, 268 

Public service, 30, 42, 45 f., 64, 85,102, 
117 f., 282 
Pueblo, Colo., 49 

Racial composition, 8 f., 28, 47, 55, 57, 
63, 81 ff. 

Recreational activities, 10 f., 20, 42, 58, 
71, 90, 98 f., 119-22, 166, 184, 216, 
224, 255, 259, 267, 274 f. 

Reformed church, 126 f. 

Religious affiliation, 28, 168, 232 f., 
252. See also Membership 
Religious education, 128 f., 138, 147, 


300 


Index 


159, 165 f., 172, 179, 21s f., 226 f., 
236,240, 246,251 f., 254,258 
Religious organization, 1, 20, 43, 49, 
57, 62 f., 67, 131, 136, 138, 145-49* 
151, 155, 203, 225-30, 234 
Religious patterns, 13, 16, 69, 72, 127, 
134 f., 138, 142-49, 182 ff., 186, 
201-4, 223, 230-34 

Residential area, 16, 21, 53, 75 f., 84, 
96, 103 f., 135, 137 f., 146, 151 
Residential suburb, 27, 30 ff., 43, 76, 
88, chap. 6, in, 118, 173, chap. 13, 
249, 272, 281 f. 

Resort city, 27, 31, 33, 43, 106, chap. 

7, 238, chap. 14, 267, 281 f. 
Rockford, Ill., 43 

Russian, 8, 72, 82, 88, 120, 183, 208 

Sacramento, 55, 140 
St. Paul, 54 

Salt Lake City, 20, 39 f., 45 f., 55, 127, 
136, 140, 143, 172, 281 
Salvation Army, 137 
San Diego, 27, 30, 114-18, 244, 246 ff., 
251, 256, 272, 281 
San Francisco, 39 
Satellite: areas, 15; cities, 32, 37, 58 
Scandinavian, 8, 47, 54, 100, 108, 141, 

176 

Schenectady, N. Y., 63 
School attendance, 28, 49, 66 f., 100, 
107, 281 

Scranton, Pa., 29, 42, 59, 62 ff., 69,182, 
187, 198, 281 

Sectarian, 126, 151, 162, 167, 170, 

177 f., 204, 229. See also Funda¬ 
mentalism 

Secularism: See Church, attitude to¬ 
ward 

Sex distribution, 47, 52, 54, 63, 83, 
90, 99, 107 f., 127, 154 f. ; in 
churches, 155 ff., 196, 283-88 
Sioux City, la., 18, 41 
Small city, 5 ff., 14, 24, 35, 41 f., 130, 
188 


Social change, 14, 140, 176 f., 210, 
214 f. 

Social control, 12, 142, 203 
Social institutions, 13, 125 f., 128, 140, 
177, 223, 236 

Social settlement, 169 f., 273 
Social traits: See Culture pattern 
Social welfare work of churches, 137, 
142, 166 f., 179, 191 f., 206 f., 216, 
220, 236, 259, 267 

Southern cities, 26,31, 50-53, 60, 67 ff., 
73, 143, 186 f. 

Specialization, 6, 9 f., 24, 26 f., 32, 35, 
42, 55 , 76 , 78 , 90, 96, 99 , 101, 108 f., 
hi f., 136, 222, 268 
Standard of living, 3, 8, 18, 21, 27, 
31 f., 51 ff., 57, 61, 63, 65-68, 73, 84, 
86, 88 f., 95, 100, 118, 121, 151, 
184 

Status, social, 22, 68, 95, 108 ff., 125, 
150 f., 181, 222-25, 227, 231, 237, 266 
Stockton, Cal., 39 

Suburb, 20, 39 f., chaps. 5 and 6, 134 
Sunday school: See Religious educa¬ 
tion 

Superior, Wis., 53 

Survey of community, 150 f., 154, 
260-67 

Swedish: See Scandinavian 
Symbiosis, 3, 96 
Syrian, 216, 272 

Tacoma, Wash., 59, 63 f., 66, 75, 183, 
187 f., 281 
Tampa, Fla., 26 
Topeka, Kas., 49 

Trade, 30, 32, 36, 41 f-, 45 f., 58, 64 f., 
85 f., 101 f., 108, hi, 117, 282 
Trade area, 3, 20, 39, 46, 53 f., 58. 

See also Hinterland 
Transients, 47, 90,115,118 f., 135, 142, 
244, 246, 249 ff., 253 f., 267, 276 
Transportation and communication, 
2-5, 7, 10 f., 23, 29 f., 34, 36, 38 ff., 
44 ff-, 5 o, 53 , 56 , 59 ff-, 63, 70, 76 L, 


Index 


301 


79, 85, 91, 94, 97 ff-, 102, 104 f., 
112 f., 117, 144, 183, 236, 282 
Tulsa, Okla., 26, 29, 44, 49, 59 

Unchurched, 152-57, 164 ff., 187 f., 
199, 206, 228, 231 f., 251, 270, 275— 
78 

Unchurched area, 151, 265 
Union City, N. J., 27 
United Brethren, 177, 179 
Urban dominance, 2, 36 f., 39 ff., 58, 
77,105, 109, 128, 144 
Urban pattern: development of, 38 f., 
49, Si, 57, 75, 131; influence of, 
25 ff., 38 f., 72, 75 f., 78 ff., 87 ff., 
94 f., 112-18, 120, 131, 138, 141-45, 
181 f., 200 

Village, 4, 6 f., 9, 18, 35 f., 50, 75 , 94 , 
127, 144 

Vital statistics, 7, 47 


West Coast cities, 66,116,152, 187 
White-collar occupations, 9, 31, 43, 
96, 99, 101, 104, 109, 120, 181 
Wichita, Kas., 40, 44 f., 48 ff., 55, 140, 
179, 281 

Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 29 
Winston-Salem, N. C., 26, 59, 63 ff., 
67 ff., 71, 186 f., 193, 198, 281 
Women workers, 43,45 ff., 52, 63 f., 83, 
85, 99, 102, 117 

Work pattern, 43, 57 f., 62 f., 67, 70 f., 
83 f., 87, 89-93, 101, 108, III, 116 f., 
119 f., 182 f., 201 f., 243 f., 253 
Worship service, 160 f. 

Yonkers, N. Y., 76, 200 

Zoning, 1, 21, 23, 79, 81, 96 

































































